[00:00:01.05]
(upbeat music)

[00:00:16.00]
- The thing I remember most about Tom

[00:00:17.05]
is what he feels like.

[00:00:20.02]
You know, I know what his
neck feels like to kiss it

[00:00:22.09]
and to bite it, and I know what his head

[00:00:24.07]
feels like his forehead.

[00:00:25.08]
'Cause I was so used to just being able

[00:00:26.07]
to run into the other room
and kiss him on the forehead,

[00:00:29.02]
or pester him, or bother him,

[00:00:30.09]
or get some attention from him.

[00:00:32.06]
And I can't do that anymore.

[00:00:35.04]
(upbeat music)

[00:01:06.09]
It was very scary to look at him

[00:01:10.00]
the first time after he died,

[00:01:12.03]
you know, look him in the face, but I did.

[00:01:17.00]
I don't remember it, but
I know I looked at him.

[00:01:19.06]
And then I wanted to close his eye

[00:01:21.00]
'cause it's very strange
seeing a dead person staring.

[00:01:25.08]
And I tried, just like in the
movies, to close the eyelid.

[00:01:28.03]
It doesn't close.

[00:01:30.01]
It pops back open.

[00:01:32.01]
As I said to Tom,

[00:01:33.06]
I apologized that life
wasn't like the movies.

[00:01:36.03]
In the movies you just sort of

[00:01:38.00]
dramatically close the eyelids
and it's all over with.

[00:01:41.01]
But it didn't.

[00:01:43.07]
(upbeat music)

[00:01:56.01]
- [Peter] Tom Joslin was my film teacher

[00:01:58.09]
back in college in the mid-seventies.

[00:02:02.07]
He was my mentor, and later,
he and his lover, Mark Massi,

[00:02:07.05]
became two of my closest friends.

[00:02:14.09]
When they were both diagnosed with AIDS,

[00:02:17.05]
Tom decided to shoot a video diary.

[00:02:26.09]
He asked me to finish it if he couldn't.

[00:02:30.04]
(upbeat music)

[00:02:55.07]
- How's this?

[00:02:57.05]
This is the first footage

[00:02:59.03]
from the beginning of the first
tape from "Silverlake Life."

[00:03:04.04]
And I thought I'd show this to Mark.

[00:03:07.03]
The message is gonna be clear.

[00:03:13.08]
How's that?

[00:03:16.00]
I love you.

[00:03:18.02]
(upbeat music)

[00:04:48.06]
Thank you very much.

[00:04:50.02]
Let's see how strong I am now.

[00:04:52.05]
Much better.

[00:04:53.09]
- Tom, I think you have one more.

[00:04:56.06]
- Okay.

[00:05:07.03]
Here we are at Thrifty's,

[00:05:10.09]
doing one of those tasks that
just will never ever get done

[00:05:16.00]
unless you do it.

[00:05:53.06]
Of course, I want the bottom one.

[00:05:59.08]
And it doesn't come loose.

[00:06:18.00]
It's so tough.

[00:06:20.05]
The simplest five minute task,
you have to go to the car

[00:06:25.01]
and lie down and put
the seat back and rest

[00:06:27.02]
and catch your breath.

[00:06:31.02]
What a way to live.

[00:06:32.08]
Huh.

[00:06:33.06]
What a way to die.

[00:06:39.04]
(Lois chanting)

[00:07:15.02]
- And now I'm going to call in Omrah.

[00:07:17.07]
Omrah is a healing spirit from
our Northern 5th Dimension.

[00:07:22.03]
He works with many other spirits,

[00:07:24.09]
but he channels through me.

[00:07:27.05]
And he heals by the vibrations
in the sound of his voice.

[00:07:31.02]
So if you will allow Omrah's voice

[00:07:33.04]
to penetrate deep into your psyche,

[00:07:36.02]
he will work with your own cells

[00:07:38.06]
to create a pattern of harmony and order,

[00:07:43.00]
so all disharmony will
disappear from your body.

[00:07:47.00]
You will feel wonderful.

[00:07:48.02]
Your body will sing.

[00:07:49.06]
It'll be like a beautiful symphony.

[00:07:51.09]
So Omrah, we have a new friend here, Mark.

[00:07:54.05]
Would you please come and
do a nice blessing on Mark?

[00:07:57.07]
(Lois chanting)

[00:08:47.02]
- [Tom] Okay, that's good.

[00:08:48.04]
Is there image up here?

[00:08:50.01]
- [Student] Yeah.

[00:08:51.03]
- [Tom] There has to be image up there.

[00:08:52.05]
- It's on standby.

[00:08:56.05]
It'll come up in a bit.

[00:08:57.08]
Yeah.

[00:08:58.08]
Seen it?

[00:08:59.08]
- Not yet.

[00:09:01.01]
There we go.

[00:09:02.02]
Yes, it's up.

[00:09:03.00]
- [Mark] There it is.

[00:09:04.03]
- [Student] All right, yay.

[00:09:07.01]
- I want to be over here more.

[00:09:11.06]
- When you first found
out about your illness.

[00:09:15.07]
- I have a lover named Mark,

[00:09:17.02]
and we've been together for 22 years now.

[00:09:20.04]
So we finally made the
decision to get our tests done,

[00:09:25.03]
which was about six years ago.

[00:09:29.05]
And I went in, and I came out positive.

[00:09:32.08]
And it was very shocking to say the least.

[00:09:36.00]
And it's always hovering
in the back of your mind,

[00:09:38.09]
and you're looking for
KS spots or lesions,

[00:09:43.04]
or some sign that the disease
is finally really here.

[00:09:47.07]
I was hit very suddenly with
cryptococcus meningitis,

[00:09:53.03]
which is kind of a brain disease.

[00:09:55.06]
I've got to put this
in, it's so beautiful.

[00:09:57.08]
Described by my doctor as,

[00:10:01.00]
"it's kind of like bats hanging

[00:10:03.09]
from the back of your
brain stem upside down,

[00:10:07.01]
and slowly eating their way up."

[00:10:10.01]
Lovely.

[00:10:11.09]
Anyway, that hit with a
smashing series of headaches

[00:10:18.02]
and high temperatures, and I
got rushed to the hospital.

[00:10:21.02]
So the task of telling my
parents that I had AIDS,

[00:10:27.01]
went to Mark.

[00:10:29.05]
- [Student] How difficult was it for you

[00:10:31.05]
to tell your friends and family?

[00:10:32.03]
What sort of reaction did you get?

[00:10:36.00]
- For a long time I didn't tell anybody.

[00:10:38.04]
I didn't want to tell anybody,

[00:10:40.02]
because AIDS is such a horrible
thing in people's minds.

[00:10:44.06]
To everybody it's a death sentence.

[00:10:47.01]
So when you tell somebody
that you have AIDS,

[00:10:50.00]
they start treating you that way;

[00:10:51.09]
like you're a sick person, or a leper,

[00:10:53.09]
or someone who's going to die soon.

[00:10:55.05]
And that's an uncomfortable way to live.

[00:10:57.04]
I mean it may be true that,

[00:10:58.08]
you know, I could die in
six months or two years,

[00:11:00.02]
or five years, or whatever,
but you can't live like that.

[00:11:03.07]
And to have people looking
at you that way all the time

[00:11:06.05]
is really uncomfortable.

[00:11:08.00]
You feel crappy.

[00:11:09.00]
I think Tom started telling
people that I had AIDS.

[00:11:15.05]
Because I've had AIDS
for almost two years.

[00:11:20.00]
And when he got sick this past summer,

[00:11:22.00]
he ended up slowly telling
people because he had to.

[00:11:23.09]
And then, it got revealed that I had AIDS.

[00:11:29.07]
- That's it, and we're rolling.

[00:11:33.07]
- It is rolling.

[00:11:35.08]
A lot of work, huh?

[00:11:39.05]
- Yup.

[00:11:40.06]
- This is funny because we
should be looking at the camera,

[00:11:43.04]
but if you look at the camera,

[00:11:44.07]
you can't see yourself in the monitor.

[00:11:47.03]
- Yeah.

[00:11:48.07]
Well, let's look forward
into the void instead.

[00:11:53.07]
(sigh)

[00:11:56.06]
- How's that for dramatic effect?

[00:12:01.07]
- What a composition!

[00:12:03.04]
Watch this, this is really gonna,

[00:12:05.09]
this is gonna...

[00:12:15.01]
- There.

[00:12:19.06]
You're supposed to imagine

[00:12:20.05]
that this is some kind of
plant blowing in the breeze.

[00:12:22.01]
- Ah.

[00:12:23.04]
It actually looks like an amoeba to me.

[00:12:25.02]
- Well that's probably
because you're more primordial

[00:12:27.06]
than I am.

[00:12:28.08]
So you can see my KS, the radiation burns.

[00:12:32.09]
- One thing I've noticed
on this here is your...

[00:12:38.02]
Where are you?

[00:12:39.00]
You're down here some place.

[00:12:40.04]
Is your eye,

[00:12:43.07]
where you have that red
line on your eyelid there.

[00:12:47.01]
- Oh, that's over here.

[00:12:48.04]
- No, there's one on this side.

[00:12:50.01]
- There is?

[00:12:50.09]
- Yeah.

[00:12:51.08]
- What are you saying?

[00:12:53.00]
There is one now, there isn't one...

[00:12:54.02]
- There is one.

[00:12:55.00]
- Where?

[00:12:55.09]
Right there?

[00:12:56.07]
- That little line there.

[00:12:58.02]
- Huh, that's new?

[00:13:00.00]
- I don't know.

[00:13:00.08]
I've never seen it before,

[00:13:01.07]
but I haven't looked at
your eyes in a long time.

[00:13:04.06]
- I haven't either.

[00:13:05.05]
I haven't seen it before.

[00:13:06.03]
- Maybe you'll get to have the...

[00:13:08.09]
- Oh god, thanks.

[00:13:12.00]
The little lead shield stuck in my eyelid.

[00:13:14.08]
It sure feels like it.

[00:13:18.03]
(airplane engine roaring)

[00:13:22.00]
- [Airplane PA] I would
like to welcome you aboard,

[00:13:23.05]
Trans World Flight 868,

[00:13:25.02]
service from Los Angeles to New York.

[00:13:28.00]
Your Captain in command
today is Captain Ray Burtle.

[00:13:31.05]
He's celebrating his 35th year with TWA,

[00:13:34.07]
and this is his last flight.

[00:13:41.00]
- [Tom] Well, "Silverlake Life"

[00:13:42.06]
normally takes place in
Silverlake, California,

[00:13:46.02]
but in the end it goes where I go.

[00:13:49.01]
And It's Christmas time.

[00:13:51.05]
And this summer when I almost died

[00:13:53.05]
and my family came out and saw me,

[00:13:57.01]
one of the things that we talked about

[00:13:59.09]
as a way to keep me going, a goal to set,

[00:14:03.05]
and live towards, was
Christmas when I'd fly back

[00:14:07.00]
and say hello to them all.

[00:14:09.07]
So, mid-December, Mark and
I hopped on an airplane

[00:14:13.07]
ready to go back to the cold winter,

[00:14:18.04]
to share Christmas with my family.

[00:14:24.02]
There seemed to be some tension

[00:14:25.00]
about this trip to New Hampshire.

[00:14:28.08]
I was already sick.

[00:14:30.00]
I was worried about the cold.

[00:14:33.04]
And I think they were also worried

[00:14:37.04]
that I had started to
make this tape again.

[00:14:40.09]
Because literally, 15 years ago,

[00:14:42.08]
I'd made a movie about being
gay and growing up gay,

[00:14:46.04]
and it was asking a lot
of them at the time.

[00:14:51.09]
And this is some of that material.

[00:14:57.00]
(upbeat music)

[00:15:20.05]
One day in this very spot,

[00:15:21.09]
this is less than 300 yards from my house,

[00:15:25.04]
I'd bicycled down here.

[00:15:26.07]
You know, this is around 14 or 15.

[00:15:29.01]
And I came across, I think it
was right by this tree, yeah,

[00:15:34.01]
a rock, and under the rock was a note.

[00:15:37.07]
And it was right under here

[00:15:40.04]
and there was a note in it, you know.

[00:15:41.04]
And the notes were between two gay lovers.

[00:15:44.03]
And they were communicating
when they were going to meet.

[00:15:48.07]
So I wrote back to them,
the schedule of course.

[00:15:51.07]
But I wrote back to them,
telling them about it,

[00:15:54.06]
and then came back, and they
left me a dirty magazine.

[00:15:59.02]
And being gay,

[00:16:00.09]
every mother finds dirty magazines

[00:16:03.09]
that their kids collected,

[00:16:04.09]
you know, that they
hide under the mattress.

[00:16:06.03]
But not dirty male magazines, you know.

[00:16:10.00]
And you develop this
whole inner secretiveness,

[00:16:13.01]
where you learn not to tell people,

[00:16:15.02]
you know, and to hide things,
and to cover things up,

[00:16:17.09]
and it begins to change your personality.

[00:16:20.02]
And you learn how to socialize with women

[00:16:22.07]
and pretend to follow the whole route

[00:16:26.00]
that all your peers are following,

[00:16:27.07]
when in the end it's kind of all a lie.

[00:16:31.02]
And you learn to lie pretty well.

[00:16:35.07]
And I'm tired of lying.

[00:16:36.05]
I don't wanna lie anymore.

[00:16:38.04]
So ah, I make this film.

[00:16:40.05]
Right?

[00:16:45.09]
What's your name?

[00:16:47.02]
What's your relationship to me?

[00:16:49.00]
- My name is Mark Massi,
and I'm your lover.

[00:16:52.07]
Back in college, you had decided

[00:16:56.01]
that you couldn't love anybody,

[00:16:57.01]
and you didn't want to love anybody,

[00:16:58.04]
and you were going to love
everybody through film

[00:17:00.07]
by doing great, tender, romantic films.

[00:17:05.01]
And, I madly fell in love with you

[00:17:08.00]
'cause I was desperately
in need to love somebody,

[00:17:10.06]
and our minds just
seemed to work together.

[00:17:13.05]
We understood life kind
of on the same level.

[00:17:16.02]
And it took almost a year
of me yelling and screaming

[00:17:18.07]
and pulling my hair out,
and getting very suicidal,

[00:17:21.08]
before you finally fell in love with me.

[00:17:25.03]
(upbeat music)

[00:17:48.02]
- [Tom] Okay.

[00:17:50.07]
What's your name and what's
your relationship to me?

[00:17:53.09]
- My name is Mary Joslin,
middle name Kimball,

[00:17:57.06]
and I am your mother.

[00:17:59.06]
- [Tom] Okay.

[00:18:00.05]
Are you nervous?

[00:18:01.05]
- Not very, no.

[00:18:03.09]
- [Tom] I am.

[00:18:05.00]
- [Mary] You are?

[00:18:05.09]
- [Tom] Yeah.

[00:18:07.04]
Can you remember, clearly,

[00:18:10.09]
the first time that I ever told
you that I was a homosexual.

[00:18:14.06]
- Yes, indeed.

[00:18:17.00]
- [Tom] Could you relate that?

[00:18:19.02]
- Yes.

[00:18:20.00]
It was in the lobby of
the New England Center

[00:18:24.03]
at the University of New Hampshire.

[00:18:27.05]
And I was standing, at the
time, on an orange rug.

[00:18:33.09]
And I very shortly sat down.

[00:18:40.02]
- I don't even like to think about it.

[00:18:43.01]
I think it's awful.

[00:18:45.02]
And I think we must've done
something wrong to get that way.

[00:18:48.06]
And I don't think you
ought to advertise it.

[00:18:50.02]
And I don't think in this movie

[00:18:51.01]
you ought to even mention it,

[00:18:52.02]
because it may not be embarrassing to you,

[00:18:54.03]
but it'd be embarrassing as hell to me.

[00:19:01.07]
- Family life has always meant so much,

[00:19:04.05]
and to think that you would
not have a family of your own

[00:19:06.07]
was a great disappointment to me.

[00:19:10.06]
- [Tom] What about Mark?

[00:19:11.08]
How do you get along with Mark?

[00:19:14.05]
- I don't know how frank I
should be about this, Tom.

[00:19:18.06]
- I don't know, Mark is
always, seems to be a nice guy.

[00:19:22.05]
There's two or three things against him

[00:19:23.09]
as far as I'm concerned.

[00:19:24.09]
First his looks.

[00:19:26.05]
He looks like he's gonna fall over,

[00:19:28.05]
and he looks as though he's got TB to me.

[00:19:30.03]
I don't know.

[00:19:31.09]
And of course he's got two
strikes against him anyway,

[00:19:36.08]
having something to do with your,

[00:19:41.01]
ah, "married life," shall we say?

[00:19:42.02]
It doesn't seem quite normal,
to us, to the normal people.

[00:19:45.06]
So naturally he's got
three strikes against him.

[00:19:48.00]
On the other hand he's always
very nice and pleasant,

[00:19:51.07]
to me anyway.

[00:19:53.03]
But, I don't think I should say anymore.

[00:19:57.02]
But in other words,

[00:19:58.00]
he isn't the type of guy I
would pick out for a friend.

[00:20:00.09]
You understand.

[00:20:01.07]
There just wouldn't...

[00:20:02.05]
He and I couldn't get along, I'm sure.

[00:20:03.09]
I'm sure because he'd be...

[00:20:06.02]
We think in different circles,
different ways and so on.

[00:20:12.00]
- We just don't think alike.

[00:20:14.01]
We don't live alike.

[00:20:16.00]
I think he resents a great deal about me,

[00:20:18.08]
and I resent something about him.

[00:20:22.04]
- She's a typical liberal, you know.

[00:20:24.09]
On the surface she's nice and kind to us,

[00:20:27.01]
you know, and says oh, okay,
I realize that you are...

[00:20:28.09]
I mean she doesn't know what gay is, okay?

[00:20:32.01]
She says we're homosexual,

[00:20:33.05]
and she accepts the fact
that we're homosexuals,

[00:20:35.06]
and she feels sort of sorry for us

[00:20:37.09]
in her own little way that,

[00:20:39.00]
you know, we can't live
like the rest of the world.

[00:20:42.02]
And those sort of things just,

[00:20:44.04]
I mean when you build
them up on a larger scale,

[00:20:46.01]
that's what makes
homosexuals commit suicide.

[00:20:50.01]
As we begin to see who we are,

[00:20:52.01]
we've got to see that little,
seemingly unimportant details

[00:20:55.04]
such as words and labels tell a story;

[00:20:58.04]
a fairy tale of sorts.

[00:21:00.03]
So let me say a little about
gay as opposed to homosexual.

[00:21:03.08]
They are opposites.

[00:21:05.02]
And not just two words
expressing similar objects,

[00:21:08.00]
because only one talks about objects.

[00:21:11.02]
In order to understand these words,

[00:21:13.05]
we must understand that this
society is a multicultured one,

[00:21:17.06]
but in reality it
recognizes only one culture.

[00:21:20.06]
The others are under genocidal attack.

[00:21:24.09]
So now for us it is a
beautiful thing to be blatant,

[00:21:28.07]
where at one time it was looked down upon.

[00:21:31.01]
We have come to see
that it is the fairies,

[00:21:33.07]
faggots, queens, etc.,

[00:21:34.08]
that were, through their blatantness,

[00:21:36.03]
the first to challenge the system.

[00:21:38.06]
In essence saying they had
the right to be super-gay

[00:21:42.09]
because blatant is beautiful.

[00:21:45.01]
So we also know that it will not be

[00:21:46.08]
until what straights call
blatant behavior is accepted

[00:21:49.04]
with respect that we are, in
any sense, any of us, free.

[00:21:54.00]
The personal is the
political, the economic,

[00:21:57.01]
and the cultural.

[00:21:58.04]
Gay is the revolution.

[00:22:07.05]
- [Tom] Do you love me?

[00:22:08.03]
- Oh yes.

[00:22:13.04]
(airplane engine )

[00:22:16.06]
- [Tom] Well, when that showed on PBS,

[00:22:18.07]
there was a little
consternation I can tell you.

[00:22:21.05]
So maybe some fear that
I was redoing a new tape

[00:22:24.01]
also added to the pressure.

[00:22:27.05]
But I arrived and there was an entourage

[00:22:29.08]
to meet Mark and me.

[00:22:32.07]
Friendly people from the family.

[00:22:36.04]
This is ma mere.

[00:22:38.05]
Ever beautiful.

[00:22:39.09]
And back at home this is Sam

[00:22:44.00]
about to take a treat at
the table from my father.

[00:22:48.03]
Don't feed the dog at the table.

[00:22:52.07]
- [Mary] It goes down fast, doesn't it?

[00:22:54.07]
- It sure does.

[00:22:56.02]
(all laughing)

[00:23:10.07]
- Oh, hi there!

[00:23:12.06]
I'm Whitey Joslin, I'm
Tom's older brother.

[00:23:16.06]
- H-hey!

[00:23:17.06]
Yes, it is me, Whitey Joslin.

[00:23:19.04]
It is I, excuse me, Whitey
Joslin, the star of the previous

[00:23:22.04]
Tommy Joslin spectacular.

[00:23:26.00]
My wife, Susan.

[00:23:28.05]
- [Tom] What happened right
away when you found out

[00:23:31.06]
that I had it?

[00:23:33.08]
- You're saying when we
found out you had AIDS?

[00:23:35.08]
- [Tom] Yeah.

[00:23:37.00]
- It was just kind of...

[00:23:39.02]
It wasn't that we didn't
expect to hear it,

[00:23:42.04]
because you had told us that Mark had AIDS

[00:23:45.09]
and that you did not.

[00:23:47.06]
- And we started talking
about you being sick,

[00:23:50.02]
and your dad said,

[00:23:54.02]
about his brother, Bob,

[00:23:55.08]
who had died a few
years earlier of cancer,

[00:23:58.09]
that he had gone to see him, once,

[00:24:01.09]
and could only stay in
the room five minutes

[00:24:03.03]
because it was just too painful for him.

[00:24:05.00]
- Dad never went back, apparently,

[00:24:06.05]
after the first time he went to visit him,

[00:24:08.04]
and said he didn't want to see him,

[00:24:09.04]
and remember him that way, I guess.

[00:24:12.05]
- At that point the phone
rang, and it was you.

[00:24:16.04]
And you said to your mom,

[00:24:17.08]
and I'll never forget these exact words,

[00:24:20.08]
"Mom, I just wanted to ask you,

[00:24:23.08]
do you understand AIDS?

[00:24:25.02]
Do you understand what's happening?"

[00:24:28.02]
And she said, "Yes."

[00:24:30.01]
And you said, "Do you understand?"

[00:24:32.09]
I sort of sensed like you were saying,

[00:24:35.03]
"You know, I'd kind of like
you guys to come out here."

[00:24:38.01]
And I said, I think, quite
bluntly that, you know,

[00:24:44.06]
"You guys should go."

[00:24:46.07]
You know, and then, "Well,
we'll think about it,

[00:24:49.01]
we'll think about it.

[00:24:49.09]
I don't know, I don't know."

[00:24:50.08]
And you turned around and said to them,

[00:24:51.07]
"Didn't you listen to that phone call?

[00:24:56.00]
Tommy wants you out there.

[00:24:58.07]
What's he got to do?"

[00:25:02.00]
I guess I just I find it hard that

[00:25:08.04]
your mom and dad just sort of,

[00:25:10.06]
are dealing with it as
if it doesn't exist.

[00:25:20.03]
- Oh!

[00:25:22.04]
Are we gonna open presents today?

[00:25:24.03]
(people chattering)

[00:25:32.04]
- Okay.

[00:25:33.04]
(people chattering)

[00:25:34.02]
Now the idea was not to
make you spend a fortune!

[00:25:36.06]
Okay.

[00:25:47.00]
- [Woman] They're supposed to stretch.

[00:25:48.06]
They stretch, keep going.

[00:25:49.05]
They stretch right on.

[00:25:51.03]
= They stretch!

[00:25:52.02]
(people laughing)

[00:25:53.05]
(upbeat music)

[00:25:59.03]
(siren wailing)

[00:26:10.03]
- Well, here we are.

[00:26:14.00]
Back in the hospital,

[00:26:18.08]
in the emergency room.

[00:26:21.09]
In the middle of New Hampshire.

[00:26:24.06]
I'm four days away from going home.

[00:26:26.03]
It's January First.

[00:26:29.02]
They always say

[00:26:30.08]
whatever you're doing on
the first day of the year

[00:26:32.03]
is what you do for the rest of your life.

[00:26:34.08]
Well, here we are.

[00:26:47.04]
- Now touch your nose,
now my finger, nose,

[00:26:51.01]
finger, nose.

[00:26:58.09]
Now Biotusc LA, like Antex LA,

[00:27:04.08]
contains an over the counter
drug called phenopropinolamine.

[00:27:09.04]
Now phenopropinolamine is a decongestant,

[00:27:12.05]
and it works pretty
well as a decongestant,

[00:27:16.03]
but it does a whole bunch
of other odd things,

[00:27:19.09]
including sleep disturbances,
and palpitations,

[00:27:23.03]
and urinary urgency.

[00:27:26.05]
And the first thing we
should do is to undo,

[00:27:28.08]
and that is to not take the Biotusc

[00:27:31.08]
and not take the cephalexin.

[00:27:35.02]
And I'm going to give you some hydroxis...

[00:27:40.07]
- [Tom] Well, by the time we finished

[00:27:41.06]
in New Hampshire this year
for Christmas, I was sick,

[00:27:46.04]
exhausted, unhappy with my family,

[00:27:50.07]
and never so glad to get away

[00:27:55.00]
and come back to the lights of Hollywood.

[00:27:58.07]
(upbeat music)

[00:28:19.03]
(birds chirping)

[00:28:53.00]
- [Dr. Matthew] Now you
haven't had any cold or flu?

[00:28:54.04]
- [Mark] No, but could you check

[00:28:56.02]
and make sure there's nothing up here.

[00:29:18.03]
How was it?

[00:29:19.06]
- I found the viral infection.

[00:29:22.03]
The blood stagnation seems
to be pretty well cleared up.

[00:29:25.09]
- Well I did a lot more walking too.

[00:29:27.08]
- Good.

[00:29:30.05]
The fungus in the mouth looks good, too.

[00:29:34.02]
- KS.

[00:29:35.07]
- Yeah.

[00:29:38.03]
What's been happening?

[00:29:39.06]
- I don't know.

[00:29:40.05]
I think it's pretty much the same.

[00:29:41.06]
I can't tell.

[00:29:43.00]
- I see a lot more of that brownish.

[00:29:47.02]
- [Mark] There is more yellow?

[00:29:48.06]
- Yeah.

[00:29:49.05]
More yellow around the lesions.

[00:29:56.01]
You haven't noticed any new lesions?

[00:29:58.02]
- No, thank God.

[00:30:01.09]
- Well, miracle of miracles.

[00:30:03.09]
We're gonna use the same
formula two weeks in a row.

[00:30:06.02]
- [Mark] Nooo.

[00:30:08.05]
Hey guys, what's wrong?

[00:30:09.05]
Come on.

[00:30:10.08]
- That's okay.

[00:31:07.04]
- We went to Dr. Matt's.

[00:31:09.04]
Went through our usual
thing this morning with him,

[00:31:12.08]
which was fine. And I got too
tired to film towards the end,

[00:31:16.05]
and went and slept in the
car while Mark had lunch.

[00:31:20.06]
I didn't have lunch 'cause
we were gonna go right home.

[00:31:24.07]
I remember he said we
were gonna go right home

[00:31:26.08]
and you can have soup and
then I'll go shopping.

[00:31:29.05]
I remember that.

[00:31:30.04]
So he brought me some soup anyway

[00:31:31.07]
'cause the soup was so good.

[00:31:35.04]
So what happens next?

[00:31:38.00]
Next he...

[00:31:39.04]
We're on our way home, and I say,

[00:31:40.05]
"Okay, I've got enough energy,

[00:31:42.06]
go ahead and do the food shopping at APLA.

[00:31:45.08]
It's right between here and home.

[00:31:47.03]
It's an easy stop, and I'll go to the bank

[00:31:51.08]
and get my glasses fixed."

[00:31:54.09]
So he does that, and I do that.

[00:31:59.08]
And then we're on our way home, he says,

[00:32:01.09]
"Look, we're almost done,

[00:32:03.07]
I'm gonna go to the health food store."

[00:32:05.06]
Which is not on the way
home, and it is now 3:30.

[00:32:11.09]
So we go to the health food store,

[00:32:13.03]
and I sit in the car and
try to sleep and can't.

[00:32:16.04]
So then he comes back and says,

[00:32:18.01]
"Look, it's only one more stop.

[00:32:20.01]
I'm gonna the Mayfair,
to get tonight's dinner

[00:32:23.01]
so I don't have to go out again.

[00:32:24.01]
We've got to protect my health."

[00:32:25.05]
Well I haven't had (beep) dinner!

[00:32:26.08]
I haven't had any.

[00:32:28.05]
Jesus!

[00:32:29.04]
Try to be helpful, getting
screwed time and time again.

[00:32:34.07]
I hate being a nice guy!

[00:32:49.02]
Of course it wasn't really Mark's fault.

[00:32:52.06]
It's just anger at my incapacity
to do the normal things

[00:32:57.00]
that I used to be able to
do, and it gets me so angry.

[00:33:13.04]
- There.

[00:33:15.01]
Voila.

[00:33:18.00]
KS medicine.

[00:33:22.02]
- [Tom] You were telling
me something a minute ago

[00:33:24.04]
that I wanted hear and put on tape.

[00:33:26.08]
- What?

[00:33:27.06]
About loving you?

[00:33:28.07]
- [Tom] Yes.

[00:33:29.05]
That's all.

[00:33:31.05]
- No, I do.

[00:33:32.08]
I love you.

[00:33:33.06]
What did you ask me?

[00:33:34.06]
How much or something?

[00:33:35.08]
- [Tom] Yeah.

[00:33:37.00]
Well just do you love me?

[00:33:37.09]
- I said, "It hurts."

[00:33:38.07]
Because I can't stand to see you sick.

[00:33:41.07]
It drives me crazy.

[00:33:43.00]
I can't do anything about it.

[00:33:44.03]
I can't control it.

[00:33:45.01]
I don't know what it is.

[00:33:46.07]
And it makes you unhappy
and it makes me unhappy,

[00:33:49.01]
and it drives me nuts.

[00:33:50.07]
Sometimes it makes me very angry.

[00:33:53.02]
Lot's of times I thought I
can't do anything about it,

[00:33:56.00]
and other times it hurts

[00:33:59.04]
because I can't do anything for you.

[00:34:02.08]
And then sometimes it scares me.

[00:34:19.05]
- Now there's a good night kiss, huh?

[00:34:21.02]
I bet you people don't get those.

[00:34:33.02]
It's another bad night.

[00:34:36.02]
I sleep for about half an hour,

[00:34:37.06]
and then I wake up and can't get to sleep

[00:34:40.08]
for another two hours
because of my head banging.

[00:34:45.07]
And then when I'm awake I just
think of all these things.

[00:34:50.04]
In this case,

[00:34:55.01]
it's about the auto show.

[00:34:59.07]
We're supposed to go to
the auto show tomorrow.

[00:35:01.07]
It will be the first
thing I've done all week

[00:35:03.03]
that isn't a doctor's visit.

[00:35:09.08]
But I don't think I have the energy to go.

[00:35:12.00]
I've already canceled a
couple of visitations.

[00:35:18.03]
And I thought of taking a wheelchair,

[00:35:20.03]
but I don't think I'm ready to admit

[00:35:22.02]
that I want a wheelchair yet.

[00:35:25.02]
I don't wanna go through
the hassle of that,

[00:35:26.07]
plus it's raining out so that
will make that even worse.

[00:35:31.01]
And I guess I shouldn't go.

[00:35:35.02]
But if I don't, I'm
admitting that I'm doomed

[00:35:38.02]
to lying here in this bed
for the rest of my life.

[00:35:41.07]
That's an unpleasant reality.

[00:35:46.02]
So I don't know, I don't know.

[00:36:01.04]
Well, the real issue wasn't the auto show

[00:36:03.07]
or not the auto show.

[00:36:04.09]
It was about tossing and turning at night.

[00:36:08.04]
And you'll be happy to know

[00:36:09.07]
that we decided not to
go to the auto show.

[00:36:13.02]
And now we're gonna go to
the record store instead.

[00:36:18.01]
(upbeat music)

[00:36:58.03]
♪ To see your eyes shine
like two desert stars ♪

[00:37:02.05]
♪ To see a life burning with a mission ♪

[00:37:06.05]
♪ To break the empty circle
of living and dying ♪

[00:37:11.06]
♪ To leave a child with a vision ♪

[00:37:14.08]
♪ I need to heart-break-loose the wind ♪

[00:37:18.03]
♪ Dedela Umoya Wami Baba ♪

[00:37:20.04]
♪ I need to heart-break-loose-the wind ♪

[00:37:22.03]
♪ Dedela Umoya Wami Baba ♪

[00:37:24.03]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:26.09]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:29.01]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:31.04]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:33.06]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:36.00]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:38.01]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:40.03]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:47.00]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:49.02]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:51.03]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:53.05]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:54.03]
♪ Heart-break-loose-the wind ♪

[00:37:55.02]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:37:58.00]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:00.02]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:02.01]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:03.08]
♪ Heart-break-loose-the wind ♪

[00:38:05.02]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:06.08]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:09.00]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:10.08]
♪ Take my heart away ♪

[00:38:11.08]
♪ Heart-break-loose-the wind ♪

[00:38:15.09]
- [Tom] Where are we?

[00:38:18.02]
- I've got hot pizza in my mouth.

[00:38:37.08]
- [Tom] You haven't told
me where we are yet.

[00:38:39.03]
- We're at Hard Times Pizza.

[00:38:48.07]
- [Mark] This is our superman
Strontium-90 rod here.

[00:38:53.04]
This is what you weren't supposed to drink

[00:38:56.04]
in the 1950's in milk.

[00:39:01.04]
Dr. Melbye also gave me
a couple names of people

[00:39:03.05]
to check out about treatments for KS.

[00:39:07.02]
- [Tom] Uh-huh.

[00:39:08.00]
- I heard of a couple of
cases of successful treatment

[00:39:11.04]
of people who've had
a number of KS lesions

[00:39:12.07]
where they've cleared.

[00:39:14.09]
One of the problems of
course is the expense.

[00:39:18.06]
- [Tom] Are we on the
third time for the alphabet

[00:39:21.08]
or the fourth time?

[00:39:22.08]
- [X-Ray technician]We're
on the third time.

[00:39:27.07]
I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.

[00:39:33.05]
- There we go.

[00:39:34.03]
(laughs)

[00:40:14.09]
- Just before we got into this session

[00:40:16.01]
you said that both of you
were not quite up to par,

[00:40:18.08]
or less than or whatever.

[00:40:22.03]
I wonder if it would be helpful

[00:40:24.07]
to talk about what has been happening.

[00:40:27.00]
How both of you are right now.

[00:40:30.01]
- Well, I've really been
sick since New Hampshire.

[00:40:33.00]
Fevers running an average
of 101 and stuff like that.

[00:40:36.09]
And we went to Dr. Matt and
got a tea mixture and stuff

[00:40:42.09]
that demanded every half hour,

[00:40:44.06]
which is a discipline that I'm not up to.

[00:40:49.02]
And then Mark was the alarm clock

[00:40:52.00]
and would bring the tea in.

[00:40:55.04]
And then I would fall
asleep and miss a bell.

[00:41:01.03]
- Tom, you don't miss a bell.

[00:41:02.06]
No, you're making it sound like you miss,

[00:41:04.07]
"Well I've just missed one or two today."

[00:41:06.07]
And you don't.

[00:41:07.06]
If you're left on your own,

[00:41:08.05]
you take like half or less of
what you're supposed to take.

[00:41:11.07]
To me there's a problem there.

[00:41:14.03]
If you're supposed to
take it every half hour

[00:41:16.00]
and you kind of forget and only take it

[00:41:17.07]
two or three times a day,
that's more than forgetting,

[00:41:19.05]
to me there's something else wrong there.

[00:41:21.06]
But for me to like, say,
"Okay, I can't do this anymore.

[00:41:25.05]
You do it."

[00:41:29.01]
In another situation, I could do that.

[00:41:31.03]
But the fact that we both have AIDS,

[00:41:33.05]
I have the added fear
that, well, if he dies,

[00:41:37.02]
of course, I don't want him to do that,

[00:41:39.00]
that's the major thing,
I don't want him to die.

[00:41:41.01]
But the other thing is that
leaves me alone with AIDS

[00:41:45.08]
to die by myself with AIDS.

[00:41:48.04]
- Can you explain to him, Tom?

[00:41:50.02]
- No.

[00:41:51.09]
I can't.

[00:41:54.03]
I mean part of me says,
"Well I do take my medicine."

[00:41:58.03]
And then it's true that I
don't take all my medicine.

[00:42:03.03]
I guess one of the things
that affects me a lot

[00:42:06.06]
is I probably am a "doomsday AIDSer."

[00:42:12.05]
You know, in the sense that statistically

[00:42:15.04]
and everything else it seems
to have its arc, if you will,

[00:42:20.06]
and I'm pretty far down the arc.

[00:42:22.05]
And I know there are always exceptions.

[00:42:27.01]
But I do feel, you know, The
Wall is not that far away.

[00:42:32.01]
And there's a certain
amount of desperation

[00:42:35.03]
in relation to this kind
of thing; the videotaping,

[00:42:39.02]
as compared to the other parts of life.

[00:42:49.01]
- The difference between the two of you

[00:42:51.07]
in this issue that I see is
that, given the same threat,

[00:42:59.03]
your way of fighting
that threat is different.

[00:43:02.06]
Quite different.

[00:43:04.08]
You, Mark, you're trying
to lower the threat.

[00:43:11.03]
You, Tom, you're trying
to make the most out

[00:43:17.00]
of what you have.

[00:43:24.00]
- [Tom] This is my bedroom.

[00:43:28.01]
There's this shelf here with flowers,

[00:43:30.05]
food and tapes to be edited.

[00:43:38.00]
The camera I do my diary with.

[00:43:40.01]
There's Mark!

[00:43:42.01]
- Here I am, Helga, with the laundry.

[00:43:44.07]
I have just done all of
our little delicates,

[00:43:47.08]
our little undies, our things.

[00:43:51.04]
- [Tom] Thank you Helga.

[00:43:53.01]
This is the camera that
I do my diary work with.

[00:43:57.01]
And then one, two, three cups
of medicine that I drink.

[00:44:02.09]
And there's the tape deck.

[00:44:06.07]
And here's the monitor which
is on an armateur device,

[00:44:15.05]
so it can be raised and lowered

[00:44:16.08]
and pulled out and pushed away.

[00:44:21.09]
This was all designed with the idea

[00:44:23.01]
that I'd end up sick in bed all the time,

[00:44:25.03]
and yet still be able to make my movie.

[00:44:37.09]
(people clapping and cheering)

[00:45:11.06]
I'm gonna tape this whole
"Tequila," so make it a good one.

[00:45:16.02]
- Oh, okay.

[00:45:17.02]
(upbeat music)

[00:45:55.06]
- Oh no!

[00:45:56.04]
- [Tom] How are you doing?

[00:45:57.03]
- I'm fine.

[00:45:58.02]
How are you?

[00:45:59.00]
- [Tom] Actually I'm pretty tired.

[00:46:00.01]
I've been doing this all day long.

[00:46:01.08]
- Oh, that's terrible.

[00:46:02.07]
- [Tom] Yeah.

[00:46:04.02]
But you've got a long way to go.

[00:46:05.02]
Do you think you'll make it all the way?

[00:46:06.00]
- It's going so fast, it's wonderful.

[00:46:08.05]
- [Tom] Really?

[00:46:09.04]
- The people and the
entertainment make it go so fast.

[00:46:11.01]
Oh yeah, I'll make it all the way.

[00:46:13.01]
- [Tom] Have a good time.

[00:46:13.09]
- Thank you.

[00:46:15.03]
- [Tom] Bye-bye.

[00:46:16.02]
- [Runner] Bye.

[00:46:17.03]
(upbeat music)

[00:46:21.07]
(people clapping and cheering)

[00:46:39.00]
- Well, let's see.

[00:46:40.08]
I've been very sick for
two and a half weeks,

[00:46:43.06]
lying in bed mostly all the time.

[00:46:48.01]
I just seem to, the last couple of days,

[00:46:50.07]
be regaining strength.

[00:46:51.06]
You're only gonna see me on my good sides.

[00:46:56.06]
During that time I got
extremely depressed.

[00:46:59.06]
Would have been happy to have just died.

[00:47:05.02]
The phrase that I came up with is

[00:47:08.03]
that I have lost the steam of life.

[00:47:14.00]
The steam of life.

[00:47:16.07]
The thing that powers you,

[00:47:20.08]
keeps you rolling towards something.

[00:47:25.06]
I know the lesson

[00:47:26.05]
is that you're just
supposed to learn to roll.

[00:47:31.09]
Not roll towards something.

[00:47:34.09]
Like a rolling stone, you know?

[00:47:38.09]
It's old wisdom, and it is wise.

[00:47:44.07]
But I feel so empty,

[00:47:49.00]
and I feel so pointless,
and I have so much trouble

[00:47:51.06]
remembering anything good I've done.

[00:48:00.05]
As if that brings value to my life.

[00:48:03.03]
I don't know, you see.

[00:48:05.08]
Of course it doesn't
bring value to my life.

[00:48:11.02]
And I know the real story is that

[00:48:16.01]
you get what you get.

[00:48:20.08]
You live a happy life.

[00:48:22.02]
You've had a happy life.

[00:48:25.04]
If you live a tormented
life and are always worrying

[00:48:28.06]
and nay-saying, that's the
life you will have lived.

[00:48:36.08]
(upbeat music)

[00:49:34.05]
We see a chair and we're
deciding if we're gonna sit in it

[00:49:37.09]
or continue to the next chair

[00:49:39.08]
in a brave effort of physical dynamism.

[00:49:47.01]
We pass the chair in a brave
effort of physical dynamism.

[00:49:53.06]
And I love you Mark so much.

[00:49:56.00]
(upbeat music)

[00:50:06.07]
A little action please.

[00:50:10.02]
- I was a sign.

[00:50:11.03]
We're here.

[00:50:13.03]
(upbeat music)

[00:51:31.04]
So glad to see you.

[00:51:41.07]
Props, props!

[00:51:50.06]
- [Tom] It's you.

[00:51:55.00]
- It's me again.

[00:51:59.04]
I need some air.

[00:52:00.09]
- [Tom] Turn around.

[00:52:02.07]
- [Lois] How ya doing?

[00:52:03.06]
- Hi.

[00:52:04.05]
- Hi.

[00:52:05.03]
- [Tom] Seeing that
there is nobody here...

[00:52:07.05]
- That's fine, sure.

[00:52:09.06]
- The woman who invited us
here, who owns the place,

[00:52:12.05]
is very nice.

[00:52:13.07]
She's been very nice to us

[00:52:14.06]
and she would like me to keep my shirt on

[00:52:16.03]
so I don't freak out any of the people.

[00:52:18.07]
And I do that, but it also then feeds

[00:52:20.08]
into that bad part of me
that I don't, you know...

[00:52:23.01]
Being self-conscious and
disliking my body and whatnot.

[00:52:26.02]
Mostly I worry about those things

[00:52:29.03]
because I don't wanna upset other people,

[00:52:31.08]
with having to look at ugly me.

[00:52:34.09]
So it ends up feeding
into a bad part of me.

[00:52:37.02]
When I should just
normally be proud of it,

[00:52:39.08]
because normally I'm proud
that I've been alive this long.

[00:52:43.07]
It's like, "Screw you, I'm
living, you know, I'm not dead."

[00:52:49.04]
- [Tom] Back into the cubby hole.

[00:52:59.02]
- What?

[00:53:00.01]
- [Tom] What are you doing?

[00:53:01.00]
Flashing me your KS?

[00:53:02.04]
Yeah.

[00:53:04.00]
I'm being political.

[00:53:15.05]
(upbeat music)

[00:54:17.03]
- This is the best part.

[00:54:19.04]
Oh, it's the best part.

[00:54:21.09]
(upbeat music)

[00:54:38.04]
What is this that passes
before my eyes everyday?

[00:54:46.05]
I spend most of my time looking, seeing.

[00:54:52.05]
Just watching this strange
thing pass in front of me.

[00:55:01.05]
I'm not much of a
participant in life anymore.

[00:55:06.03]
I'm the distant viewer, just
watching it all pass by,

[00:55:14.09]
knowing that I'm not gonna
have that much longer

[00:55:18.05]
to keep my eye on the prize.

[00:55:28.06]
Hear that industrial
sound in the background?

[00:55:34.05]
One of those big
dumpsters being pulled up,

[00:55:37.09]
someone rebuilding their house.

[00:55:41.06]
More trash going to some dump
that doesn't have room for it,

[00:55:45.01]
on a freeway that's full of cars.

[00:55:50.03]
This civilization is so strange.

[00:55:55.07]
I've never felt much a part of it.

[00:56:00.03]
I think being gay separates you a little.

[00:56:03.01]
Certainly having AIDS and,

[00:56:07.08]
being a walking dead, if you will,

[00:56:14.00]
separates one from the everyday world.

[00:56:18.01]
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

[00:56:21.08]
It really is a beautiful day, by the way.

[00:56:24.03]
Wonderful sun.

[00:56:25.05]
Not too hot, not too
cold, a little breeze.

[00:56:32.03]
I don't know what anybody
could ask for more.

[00:56:45.04]
Dr. Jenkins, in the office the other day,

[00:56:48.02]
during our monthly visit says,

[00:56:51.01]
"Well it's kind of time Tom."

[00:56:55.08]
And then he looks at me and says,

[00:56:56.07]
"You know you should maybe
start looking for a hospice."

[00:57:04.01]
The corollary of all of that information

[00:57:07.01]
of course being that, you
know, the average life span

[00:57:11.06]
in a hospice is about two months.

[00:57:14.07]
"It's time,"

[00:57:19.06]
that kind of stuff.

[00:57:22.05]
Which was very startling to hear.

[00:57:25.01]
I didn't think I was that sick,

[00:57:27.04]
even though sometimes
I sort of wanted to be.

[00:57:31.08]
It was greeted with very mixed feelings.

[00:57:38.09]
A real bombshell.

[00:57:43.08]
And that's about it.

[00:57:46.02]
That's that story.

[00:57:48.04]
- [Mark] And what have
you been doing since then?

[00:57:51.03]
- About the same as I was doing before.

[00:57:53.00]
Sleeping a lot,

[00:58:00.07]
rolling over, sleeping some more.

[00:58:04.04]
That kind of thing.

[00:58:06.02]
Taking my medicines.

[00:58:09.00]
- [Mark] Tell me about all
the people coming to visit

[00:58:10.09]
and what you feel about it.

[00:58:13.04]
- Well that's kind of hard.

[00:58:14.08]
We've been having a lot of guests

[00:58:16.06]
and we have a lot more coming.

[00:58:20.00]
It seems like they're coming
to say hi before we die.

[00:58:23.09]
You know, that kind of stuff.

[00:58:25.07]
Let's stop and say hi to Mark and Tom

[00:58:27.00]
in case things are gonna
get bad real quick.

[00:58:29.06]
- [Mark] Yup.

[00:58:31.01]
And what do you feel about Sue's visit now

[00:58:33.06]
that it's all over?

[00:58:35.01]
- It was a nice visit, kind of innocuous.

[00:58:37.00]
It ended very quietly.

[00:58:38.04]
The last day and a half she
almost stayed away from me

[00:58:41.00]
'cause I was sleeping a lot.

[00:58:43.06]
So I didn't get to see
her much, which was okay

[00:58:46.02]
in terms of what I wanted to have happen.

[00:58:49.01]
She knew when to stay away, you know.

[00:58:54.03]
So I had no trouble.

[00:58:55.04]
You apparently had more
trouble than I did.

[00:58:58.02]
- [Mark] Here, you take the camera.

[00:59:04.09]
- [Tom] What did you think of Sue's visit?

[00:59:06.08]
- Well I'll wait till you get me in frame.

[00:59:09.06]
- [Tom] Okay.

[00:59:10.08]
- Well, it's funny.

[00:59:12.04]
You probably slept through
most of Sue's visit.

[00:59:15.01]
But Sue's visit was
very helpful, very good.

[00:59:20.09]
She helped a lot.

[00:59:21.08]
I learned a lot.

[00:59:23.03]
She got me through a lot of bad times,

[00:59:24.08]
but it was a whole situation
where Sue was into,

[00:59:28.04]
"Tom is dying of AIDS."

[00:59:31.04]
And the reason she stayed away
from you those last two days

[00:59:33.08]
is because you were going
through a quote, unquote,

[00:59:35.08]
"a period of acceptance and withdrawal,

[00:59:37.08]
and needed to be left alone

[00:59:39.05]
so that you could get ready to die."

[00:59:40.08]
Not that she was just leaving you alone

[00:59:42.06]
because you were sleeping.

[00:59:43.09]
It was very taxing in that way

[00:59:46.07]
in that it was like a
barrage of death notices,

[00:59:50.01]
which I don't think was
positive for me in the end

[00:59:54.01]
in that vein.

[00:59:57.04]
- [Tom] Oh, I didn't know that.

[01:00:04.01]
- [Mark] Good morning Tom.

[01:00:04.09]
As I said earlier, this is June
1st, and how are you today?

[01:00:07.09]
- A delightful beginning.

[01:00:09.01]
You start on my urine bottle?

[01:00:10.06]
- [Mark] No, I started on
your empty breakfast tray.

[01:00:13.00]
- Oh, very good.

[01:00:13.09]
Thank you.

[01:00:16.07]
- [Mark] You made it another month.

[01:00:18.02]
We made it another month.

[01:00:19.09]
- Yeah.

[01:00:21.06]
May, April,

[01:00:25.01]
March...

[01:00:26.00]
What is it?

[01:00:28.07]
- [Mark] It's June 1st, dear.

[01:00:30.02]
- June 1st.

[01:00:32.02]
Wow!

[01:00:37.06]
June 1st.

[01:00:40.02]
My mind's been getting vague lately,

[01:00:42.08]
which is sort of a problem,
carrying on a nice conversation.

[01:00:51.01]
Happened in the car the other day.

[01:00:56.07]
- [Mark] With who?

[01:00:57.07]
- I don't know.

[01:00:58.06]
Who was I in the car with the other day?

[01:00:59.07]
Anybody?

[01:01:02.03]
- [Mark] The only car
you've been in was with me

[01:01:03.05]
was to the doctor's on Tuesday.

[01:01:14.09]
- Someone must have driven me to County.

[01:01:17.07]
- [Mark] No, you've never
been to County, Tom.

[01:01:22.02]
- Oh.

[01:01:24.05]
Anyway.

[01:01:32.03]
- [Mark] Here we are

[01:01:33.08]
having our fabulous European ocean cruise.

[01:01:36.09]
Mr. Joslin is out here on
the deck with his sunglasses,

[01:01:40.06]
his walking stick, his little cap

[01:01:44.01]
to keep the sun off the top his head,

[01:01:46.02]
and his chocolate shake.

[01:01:54.00]
- Welcome, welcome.

[01:01:55.04]
I hope you are enjoying your trip.

[01:02:00.07]
- [Mark] This is where we're going.

[01:02:03.07]
Somewhere in the Mediterranean.

[01:02:12.06]
- So we'll keep you tracked

[01:02:15.09]
with further inputs on our journey.

[01:02:22.01]
It's a little shorter than
we thought it was gonna be.

[01:02:24.09]
But then, that's life.

[01:02:29.02]
(upbeat music)

[01:02:54.08]
- [Mark] This is Judy.

[01:02:56.01]
Judy Linn is visiting.

[01:02:57.05]
- Am I in focus?

[01:02:58.04]
- [Mark] Yes, you're in focus, dear.

[01:02:59.02]
Could you go into the living room

[01:03:01.01]
and get the photograph of Tom and Me?

[01:03:04.00]
- In the frame?

[01:03:04.09]
- [Mark] Yes, the one in the frame.

[01:03:06.00]
- Okay.

[01:03:10.08]
- Judy is a photographer,

[01:03:14.01]
and this particular
photo she's gonna show us

[01:03:17.04]
is one she made for us, for us.

[01:03:23.01]
- [Mark] A year and a half
ago on our anniversary.

[01:03:27.00]
- It's really good.

[01:03:29.01]
- [Judy] You might get
some glare or something.

[01:03:37.00]
- [Mark] There we are.

[01:03:40.06]
There's Tom, and me
and Tom in the picture,

[01:03:42.01]
a year and a half ago,

[01:03:43.02]
obviously right after
he had a great haircut.

[01:03:55.02]
You remember who else is coming next week?

[01:03:58.00]
- Next week?

[01:03:59.04]
No I don't.

[01:04:00.03]
- [Mark] You know what I should do?

[01:04:01.03]
I should make a big chart on the wall

[01:04:02.03]
with the calendar of
everybody who's coming.

[01:04:03.09]
- Elaine is coming.

[01:04:05.04]
- [Mark] Yeah.

[01:04:06.03]
Bo is coming next.

[01:04:07.01]
Probably Thursday or Friday
after his "Compound Q."

[01:04:10.02]
And then Elaine is
coming this next weekend.

[01:04:15.00]
And then next Thursday your
mother and Betsy are coming.

[01:04:19.07]
And if Whitey can get a plane

[01:04:22.02]
while he's flying out to San Francisco,

[01:04:24.01]
he'll come up for a day.

[01:04:26.04]
And then Sharon and Matty
are supposed to be coming

[01:04:29.01]
that same weekend.

[01:04:30.09]
And then after that Bill Benson.

[01:04:34.08]
- [Judy] What does Whitey do?

[01:04:36.01]
- [Tom] He's my brother.

[01:04:36.09]
- What does he do?

[01:04:37.08]
- [Tom] Air Force.

[01:04:38.09]
- Oh.

[01:04:40.00]
They should give him a plane.

[01:04:42.01]
- [Tom] Exactly.

[01:04:44.01]
- They should give you a plane.

[01:04:45.05]
- [Tom] Exactly.

[01:04:46.05]
- They should give me a plane.

[01:04:48.05]
- Well, there you have it.

[01:04:49.09]
- [Judy] Let's write them a letter.

[01:04:51.06]
- [Mark] Do you love me?

[01:04:52.05]
- Yes, I love you.

[01:04:53.04]
- [Mark] Do you like me videotaping you?

[01:04:54.05]
- Yes.

[01:04:55.03]
- [Mark] I like
videotaping you too, a lot.

[01:04:58.03]
- [Elaine] Mark's making Tom's breakfast.

[01:05:02.00]
So what do we have here?

[01:05:03.02]
- [Mark] Well this is...

[01:05:04.05]
I'm not gonna give him now.

[01:05:05.04]
This is a little thick.

[01:05:06.08]
This is raspberry cream cheese.

[01:05:08.05]
- [Elaine] Miso soup.

[01:05:10.09]
Cheese cake.

[01:05:13.09]
The egg.

[01:05:16.09]
Stirring.

[01:05:18.05]
- [Mark] Mash it up to
make it easily edible.

[01:05:37.01]
It's egg.

[01:05:42.00]
I should have warned you, I'm sorry.

[01:06:25.06]
Today is Monday, and I
think that's June 19th.

[01:06:28.03]
I'm not absolutely
sure, I can check later.

[01:06:31.08]
Tom?

[01:06:33.02]
- Hum?

[01:06:34.01]
- [Mark] You wanna wave?

[01:06:35.00]
- Hi.

[01:06:36.01]
- [Mark] There we go.

[01:06:37.00]
Okay.

[01:06:39.03]
I love you.

[01:06:40.07]
You look like Queen Elizabeth.

[01:06:42.06]
Okay.

[01:06:44.01]
Thank you.

[01:06:45.08]
This is a letter that
Tom wrote his mother.

[01:06:48.06]
It says, "I Love you."

[01:06:50.08]
And I'm gonna mail it for him today.

[01:06:57.01]
Our landlord, Mike,

[01:06:59.02]
just got his doctor's
reports back on Friday.

[01:07:02.05]
And today he tells me he wants to go up

[01:07:05.02]
and see our herb doctor,

[01:07:07.06]
which means Mike's tests
came back positive.

[01:07:11.03]
And Bob, Ron's lover, he's positive,

[01:07:15.03]
so he's going back to our herb doctor too.

[01:07:21.04]
I cleaned Tom's fingernails today.

[01:07:23.05]
I soaked them and cut them
and cleaned underneath them.

[01:07:28.08]
Okay, you two, tell me
what you thought of Tom,

[01:07:31.04]
how he looked and how he was.

[01:07:34.06]
- I don't think I had seen
Tom for about three weeks,

[01:07:38.08]
two or three weeks.

[01:07:39.08]
Or had talked to him.

[01:07:41.01]
And I was surprised how, how
quickly he had gone downhill.

[01:07:48.03]
- [Mark] Yeah.

[01:07:51.00]
You haven't seen him the last time.

[01:07:52.05]
- Probably.

[01:07:54.03]
He was skinnier than I've ever seen him,

[01:07:58.00]
and I don't know.

[01:08:18.05]
- Eat a little bit more?

[01:08:32.07]
- [Mark] This is Dr. Matt's idea.

[01:08:35.02]
He said this is real easy to eat,

[01:08:37.03]
and turkey and rice is full
of carbohydrates and protein.

[01:08:41.06]
- [Mary] Good.

[01:08:44.03]
Does it taste good too?

[01:08:46.00]
It sounds good.

[01:08:48.09]
- Tastes a lot like baby food.

[01:08:51.05]
- [Mark] Yeah, it is.

[01:08:52.05]
(Mary and Mark laughs)

[01:08:54.00]
- [Mary] Don't forget you're my baby.

[01:09:38.08]
- This came in the mail yesterday.

[01:09:41.09]
And this is Tom's Medi-Cal
benefits have to be reestablished

[01:09:45.09]
because I guess it's
been a year or something.

[01:09:47.04]
I don't know.

[01:09:48.08]
And they give you a cover sheet

[01:09:50.06]
with what kind of information they want,

[01:09:53.01]
and they check it off.

[01:09:54.04]
First they want the statement
of facts for Medi-Cal,

[01:09:57.02]
which is this.

[01:09:58.07]
All these pages, both sides.

[01:10:04.00]
They want work history, they
want everything, property,

[01:10:06.04]
what he owns, what's in the bank,

[01:10:08.04]
second parent or other spouse income.

[01:10:11.04]
This is the exact, same, stupid form

[01:10:14.04]
that you had to fill out
to apply for Medi-Cal.

[01:10:17.04]
Also, down here, they want his
current income verification.

[01:10:22.00]
As if they already don't
know that he has AIDS

[01:10:23.08]
and he's on SSI and SSD.

[01:10:25.03]
They know that already.

[01:10:26.07]
Plus they want receipts
for childcare costs.

[01:10:29.09]
Now why check that off?

[01:10:30.09]
They know that he
doesn't have any children

[01:10:32.04]
when they look at the thing.

[01:10:33.05]
And his banking, savings,
and checking information.

[01:10:38.02]
They've got all this information.

[01:10:40.05]
He can't fill this out anyways.

[01:10:56.00]
- Did you sleep well last night?

[01:10:58.08]
- Yeah, I did.

[01:11:16.08]
- [Mark] Elaine said she's gonna

[01:11:17.07]
take the camera to the
Huntington Garden today.

[01:11:18.08]
Is that okay?

[01:11:22.03]
(indistinct)

[01:11:23.09]
What?

[01:11:25.07]
- Is that what we're doing?

[01:11:30.03]
- [Mark] That's what we're doing.

[01:11:33.03]
Do you want me to stay home with you?

[01:11:35.00]
- No, that's okay.

[01:11:38.01]
- [Mark] Ian's gonna be
here, the housekeeper.

[01:11:42.04]
- Sue said...

[01:11:43.04]
Sue told us that the Huntington
Gardens are beautiful.

[01:11:47.04]
Well worth seeing.

[01:11:48.07]
She said "Be sure to go there if you can."

[01:11:53.02]
(upbeat music)

[01:12:20.04]
- [Mark] Today is June 25th.

[01:12:23.03]
And it's really, really hot.

[01:12:25.03]
It's over 100 degrees or
something in the house.

[01:12:29.03]
And Tom's lying in bed
here all nice and cool.

[01:12:33.04]
I'll show you.

[01:12:34.08]
See, he even has his pants undone here

[01:12:35.07]
so that he can be cool.

[01:12:39.09]
And I haven't done any video recording

[01:12:43.05]
for the last couple of days,
because I felt really bad.

[01:12:48.07]
I gave Tom some food
that didn't settle well.

[01:12:53.01]
And it made him throw up all night.

[01:12:55.05]
And it made him a little
sicker and a little weaker.

[01:12:58.06]
And I was just ashamed
that I had done that.

[01:13:01.07]
And I was afraid to turn on the camera

[01:13:04.05]
because everybody would see
that he was weaker again.

[01:13:10.01]
I just love him so much.

[01:13:14.05]
This is Tom's right eyelid.

[01:13:19.02]
It has a KS lesion on it.

[01:13:21.03]
You can see that on the
upper rim it's very dark,

[01:13:25.02]
and that hurts him a great deal.

[01:13:28.05]
See, I can pull the eye open,
and you can see down the...

[01:13:32.04]
His eye inside.

[01:13:33.02]
But the top lid up here,

[01:13:36.05]
he says it hurts him now.

[01:13:41.09]
But his other eye over
here, that eye's fine.

[01:13:46.02]
That eye he can see in the camera with.

[01:13:52.03]
Okay.

[01:13:53.07]
Tell the camera how you feel.

[01:14:00.00]
- I feel pretty bad.

[01:14:02.00]
- [Mark] He says he feels pretty bad.

[01:14:05.01]
- I don't feel chipper.

[01:14:07.05]
- [Mark] He doesn't feel chipper.

[01:14:16.05]
- I feel (indistinct)

[01:14:22.01]
feel good.

[01:14:23.00]
- [Mark] He doesn't feel good.

[01:14:25.02]
(indistinct)

[01:14:36.07]
Oh, this is the first of July

[01:14:41.01]
and Tommy's just died.

[01:14:44.01]
My little baby's died.

[01:14:46.01]
And I sang to him.

[01:14:47.09]
I sang to him;

[01:14:49.01]
♪ You are my sunshine, my only sunshine ♪

[01:14:55.05]
♪ You make me happy when skies are gray ♪

[01:15:00.03]
♪ You'll never know dear,
how much I love you ♪

[01:15:05.07]
♪ Please don't take my sunshine away ♪

[01:15:12.00]
Isn't he beautiful?

[01:15:14.09]
He's so beautiful.

[01:15:17.08]
This is for you, Tommy.

[01:15:20.00]
All of us, all of your friends,

[01:15:21.04]
we'll finish the tape for you, okay?

[01:15:23.08]
We promise.

[01:15:25.06]
We promise.

[01:15:28.08]
Bye.

[01:15:30.02]
Bye Tom.

[01:15:37.07]
- [Mortician] Any rings,
any jewelry or anything?

[01:15:39.06]
- [Mark] No.

[01:15:40.04]
Oh, I think he lost that ring.

[01:15:43.02]
I've got his hands crossed.

[01:15:44.07]
It fell off.

[01:15:45.05]
Yeah, it fell off.

[01:15:46.07]
- [Mortician] On him here or?

[01:15:48.05]
- [Mark] No, no, a long time ago.

[01:15:50.00]
- I need to get a little
information, so...

[01:15:55.04]
- [Mark] There we go.

[01:15:56.08]
I'm gonna cover you up again, Tom.

[01:15:59.00]
All right.

[01:16:00.06]
Here we go.

[01:16:04.08]
- [Charlie] He wants some information.

[01:16:06.06]
I don't know whether we
can give it to him or not.

[01:16:09.03]
- [Mortician] Well, you know
his name, and his birth date.

[01:16:11.08]
- [Charlie] Oh yeah, we
know that sort of stuff.

[01:16:13.02]
Sure.

[01:16:14.01]
- [Mortician] I sure
don't wanna displace you.

[01:16:16.09]
What is Thomas' birth date here?

[01:16:18.01]
- [Mark] November 29th, 1946.

[01:16:20.08]
- [Mortician] November 29th, 1946.

[01:16:23.09]
- [Charlie] You know
that better than I do!

[01:16:25.04]
- [Mortician] In what
state was he born in?

[01:16:27.00]
- [Mark] Massachusetts.

[01:16:30.06]
- [Mortician] Do you happen to know

[01:16:32.04]
his social security number offhand?

[01:16:33.05]
If not we'll get it later.

[01:16:34.04]
We'll get it later.

[01:16:35.06]
So we're gonna use you,
then, as the next of Kin.

[01:16:37.09]
It's Mark?

[01:16:39.05]
- [Mark] Right, M-A-R-K.

[01:16:42.02]
M-A-S-S-I.

[01:16:47.05]
- [Mortician] This is same address right?

[01:17:59.06]
I can get it in.

[01:18:10.03]
These are designed to be one man cots.

[01:18:19.04]
I'm gonna wash my hands.

[01:18:39.07]
- [Man] They're making a film.

[01:18:43.07]
(birds chirping)

[01:19:10.05]
- I got this book in the mail today.

[01:19:11.04]
It's called "How to Survive
the Loss of a Love."

[01:19:13.09]
It came from my counselor at APLA.

[01:19:16.09]
I've been laughing a
lot at the book today.

[01:19:19.06]
I'm in the anger phase.

[01:19:20.09]
This is, the book tells you
all about the different phases

[01:19:22.06]
you go through.

[01:19:25.03]
On the left hand column,

[01:19:26.05]
they have just plain old
practical information.

[01:19:28.08]
On the opposing page they
have little poetries,

[01:19:32.01]
little poems to tell
you what they're about.

[01:19:36.03]
There's titles like,
"What Loss Feels Like,"

[01:19:39.00]
as if I don't know?

[01:19:41.02]
Then they go through
the stages of recovery.

[01:19:42.08]
There's first is "shock and denial."

[01:19:45.05]
One of the little poems I
liked very much here was:

[01:19:48.02]
"I know it was time for
us to part, but today,

[01:19:51.09]
I know I have much pain to
go through, but tonight."

[01:19:55.06]
Which is kind of true.

[01:19:57.02]
It's kind of like I didn't...

[01:19:58.01]
I understood all this was going to happen,

[01:19:59.04]
but it always happens so fast.

[01:20:01.06]
They also have charts here
on the healing process.

[01:20:04.05]
This is not how we recover.

[01:20:06.00]
This one here, which they
call like a lightening bolt,

[01:20:08.03]
with dramatic leaps and
depressing back slides,

[01:20:11.01]
this is how we truly recover.

[01:20:13.07]
"You can expect to be
in shock for a while.

[01:20:16.03]
This emotional numbness
may be frightening.

[01:20:19.00]
You may struggle both to
believe and to disbelieve

[01:20:21.07]
that this could have happened to you."

[01:20:23.03]
I like that one, 'cause you do.

[01:20:24.09]
You struggle to believe it.

[01:20:25.09]
Like, "I can't believe it happened."

[01:20:27.01]
And then once you do believe it happened,

[01:20:28.06]
you don't want to believe it happened.

[01:20:30.07]
"It has happened.

[01:20:31.07]
It is real.

[01:20:33.01]
Recognize that a loss has taken place.

[01:20:35.09]
You are strong enough.

[01:20:37.01]
You will survive."

[01:20:39.08]
But that's it.

[01:20:41.03]
That's all now.

[01:20:42.01]
This is my self-help book.

[01:20:42.09]
It will definitely get me
through this depression.

[01:20:44.06]
- [Bo Huston] And how long,
what day is this after Tom died.

[01:20:47.07]
- This is day two.

[01:20:48.05]
Day two after Tom died.

[01:20:49.04]
And I actually,

[01:20:51.02]
there was a big dramatic
change this morning.

[01:20:53.01]
All the pain and tension in my gut,

[01:20:54.08]
and the feeling that I can't do anything,

[01:20:56.06]
that I'm trapped and I'm
going to throw up and whatnot,

[01:20:58.06]
and implode, that's gone.

[01:21:00.05]
And it is replaced with, as I said, anger,

[01:21:03.01]
which is much more comical
and cynical to deal with.

[01:22:35.07]
I'm bleeding.

[01:23:14.02]
You're all over the place, Tom.

[01:24:47.08]
- We should know that
from the very beginning,

[01:24:49.07]
God gave all of his creation freedom.

[01:24:54.00]
God gave freedom for viruses to exist,

[01:24:56.09]
and one of those viruses causes AIDS.

[01:24:59.08]
It doesn't mean that god sends
AIDS or any other sickness.

[01:25:04.06]
Bad things do happen to good people.

[01:25:08.08]
Jesus loves people with AIDS.

[01:25:11.03]
Jesus loves any sick person.

[01:25:13.07]
Jesus loves well people.

[01:25:16.00]
Jesus loves gay people.

[01:25:17.09]
Jesus loves straight people.

[01:25:20.03]
Let us never forget that on that cross,

[01:25:23.02]
Jesus shed His precious
blood for all of humanity.

[01:25:27.04]
He didn't have a list of who
was worthy and who was not.

[01:25:32.02]
That salvation was a gift
given to all humanity,

[01:25:36.06]
and for all time.

[01:25:39.04]
- These two characters
really shaped my life a lot.

[01:25:43.06]
They brought me in.

[01:25:45.08]
They shared life with me very patiently.

[01:25:49.00]
They showed me New York, they
showed me their relationship.

[01:25:52.04]
They showed me art and the
price of being grownups.

[01:25:57.06]
And now they have shown me even
more about illness and loss,

[01:26:01.09]
giving up, enduring, and
about the boundaries of love.

[01:26:06.09]
- And then my thoughts turned
to other friends I had lost.

[01:26:10.08]
How many was it now?

[01:26:13.07]
It seemed I should be keeping
count of these things.

[01:26:17.00]
My thoughts then flashed back
to the years of the 60's,

[01:26:21.08]
and a time when we sat
before the television set

[01:26:24.05]
and were given body counts from Vietnam.

[01:26:27.08]
250 enemy dead, 35 Americans dead.

[01:26:31.07]
It seemed that we, as a society,

[01:26:34.00]
want to assign importance to
a situation by keeping score.

[01:26:39.00]
The 35 American dead were
less important somehow

[01:26:42.04]
because the score was
250 to 35 in our favor.

[01:26:48.05]
And so now the count
marches on in this battle.

[01:26:53.00]
But we are faced with a
dilemma in our war with AIDS;

[01:26:57.06]
there are no enemy dead
to count this time.

[01:27:01.08]
We are faced with the prospect

[01:27:02.08]
of counting only the dead
among our loved ones.

[01:27:08.07]
- My brother had a dream,

[01:27:10.03]
and he had the guts to
dare to be different,

[01:27:12.08]
to follow his dream.

[01:27:14.07]
My brother, Tom, left us a legacy.

[01:27:16.01]
He bequeathed to us his unfulfilled dream,

[01:27:19.07]
"Silverlake Life: The View From Here."

[01:27:23.07]
When I last saw Tom, Mark
and I spoke of destiny.

[01:27:28.06]
Perhaps it was Tom's destiny to die

[01:27:30.09]
in order to create the full
impact of "Silverlake Life."

[01:27:35.09]
- [Peter] Well, before "Silverlake Life"

[01:27:38.03]
could have any impact,
it had to be completed.

[01:27:41.06]
When Tom died, I was in France.

[01:27:44.05]
But five months later, I
went back to California

[01:27:47.09]
to film an ending, and to visit Mark.

[01:27:52.00]
We talked about everything
that had happened

[01:27:54.01]
since the last time I saw them.

[01:27:57.02]
What about Tom's parents?

[01:27:58.02]
What happened between you
and his family when he died?

[01:28:01.00]
- Family, Peter wants
to talk about family.

[01:28:04.05]
Well, there was a big
issue with Tom anyways,

[01:28:07.03]
way back when he first got sick

[01:28:10.00]
with the cryptococcus meningitis.

[01:28:12.02]
With whether his family was
gonna come out here to see him.

[01:28:16.06]
And they didn't know if
it would do any good.

[01:28:19.09]
And, you know, should they come out now,

[01:28:21.05]
should they come out later,
all these kind of things.

[01:28:24.04]
And then when he got
really sick this last time,

[01:28:27.08]
there was a question about
who should come out again.

[01:28:31.00]
You know, was it time?

[01:28:34.02]
One of the things which
I haven't even mentioned

[01:28:37.03]
in any of the tapes so far is
Charlie's wonderful line of,

[01:28:41.05]
"Well, would it do any
good" if he came out.

[01:28:45.01]
And I kept trying to tell Charlie

[01:28:46.08]
that "good" didn't make any difference.

[01:28:49.01]
It's: "Do you want to see
your son one last time

[01:28:50.08]
before he dies?"

[01:28:52.04]
You know?

[01:28:53.07]
But anyway, when Tom died,
and we're all crying,

[01:28:57.00]
Charlie comes running into the room.

[01:28:59.08]
And the first thing he tries to do

[01:29:01.04]
is to get Mary to leave the room, saying,

[01:29:03.01]
"It's all over now.

[01:29:04.06]
Come on, come on out here.

[01:29:05.05]
Don't do this to yourself."

[01:29:08.00]
And I finally had to yell
at him and say, you know,

[01:29:09.06]
"Leave her alone. Let her stay here.

[01:29:12.02]
This is the last she's
gonna be with her son."

[01:29:13.09]
But that whole experience
between Mary and I,

[01:29:18.00]
and Tom dying and taking care of him,

[01:29:19.04]
did change her opinion of me.

[01:29:21.04]
I've been adopted as
pretty much a son to her

[01:29:26.08]
because we both went
through something together,

[01:29:29.08]
that only she and I went through.

[01:29:32.09]
Nobody else did this but she and I.

[01:29:36.03]
So this "experience" has
really brought us together

[01:29:39.09]
and made us really close.

[01:29:42.09]
- [Peter] Seems like there's
more than a little bit of irony

[01:29:46.01]
in the situation.

[01:29:46.09]
- Oh yes.

[01:29:48.02]
The fact that Tom had to die

[01:29:49.07]
for her to see how much
I really did love him.

[01:29:54.04]
- [Peter] What about your father?

[01:29:56.00]
- We've never gotten along very well.

[01:29:58.02]
But when Tom died, I sent him a letter

[01:30:01.05]
and told him about it.

[01:30:03.01]
And I was surprised, he
wrote me a letter back,

[01:30:06.07]
and this is it.

[01:30:08.03]
This is the only letter I have
ever gotten from my father.

[01:30:12.01]
"Hi, Mark.

[01:30:12.09]
I have never written you, but I am now.

[01:30:15.07]
I know you have a problem,
but take it one day at a time.

[01:30:19.04]
I had to make the best of it.

[01:30:20.09]
I had the two of you to take care of.

[01:30:23.08]
I did tell both of you if you are gay,

[01:30:26.04]
just don't tell the world.

[01:30:28.04]
Heck, I told you of gays after me

[01:30:30.05]
and you said I might like it.

[01:30:32.07]
Well, I had a gay come to my apartment.

[01:30:34.07]
Wow!

[01:30:35.08]
Well anyway, keep up the
faith, it will all work out.

[01:30:38.04]
Your Dad."

[01:30:40.06]
This is a very weird letter.

[01:30:42.06]
This is a surreal letter.

[01:30:45.07]
But I think that letter does recognize,

[01:30:48.09]
in that letter my father does recognize

[01:30:50.05]
that Tom and I were a couple, a family.

[01:30:53.06]
Because he talks about it

[01:30:56.05]
in terms of him losing
his wife, my mother.

[01:31:01.03]
- [Peter] How long did
you and Tom live together?

[01:31:03.05]
- [Mark] Almost 22 years.

[01:31:05.01]
It'll be 22 years January 11th.

[01:31:10.07]
- [Peter] Tell me about life now?

[01:31:14.04]
- Life now?

[01:31:26.01]
Life now is very confusing.

[01:31:34.05]
I mean, it's even hard to
organize thoughts in my head

[01:31:37.00]
to talk about it.

[01:31:39.00]
Because I'm in horrendous
physical pain all the time

[01:31:41.02]
because of my rectal problems.

[01:31:44.08]
I'm on lots of pain killers
which make me weird.

[01:31:48.06]
I have my own AIDS, my
own falling T-cell count.

[01:31:53.08]
I'm just really beat.

[01:31:57.05]
That's probably the easiest way to put it.

[01:31:58.09]
I'm really, really beat.

[01:32:03.01]
Along with the gas still is
that inability to digest,

[01:32:06.03]
you know, foods, so I'm still only eating

[01:32:08.04]
two meals a day at the most.

[01:32:14.02]
And it also means I haven't been,

[01:32:16.07]
just the last couple of days,

[01:32:17.08]
I haven't been able to take
all my medicines at night,

[01:32:19.07]
because they just won't digest.

[01:32:25.08]
Doesn't it look like it's
still getting lighter?

[01:32:27.09]
- Well you know, it's the same thing.

[01:32:29.00]
The center of the lesions
are all blanched out.

[01:32:30.05]
- Yeah.

[01:32:33.00]
They're still yellow around the edges too.

[01:32:34.06]
- They're still very
yellow around the edges.

[01:32:35.07]
More so, I would say, than last week.

[01:32:38.07]
You think they're yellower?

[01:32:39.06]
- Yeah, see, this is a lot yellower,

[01:32:41.01]
and these are more blanched
out than they used to be.

[01:32:45.03]
But we still have the other problem

[01:32:47.00]
that the newer ones are still growing.

[01:32:48.08]
It's still pretty good.

[01:32:51.05]
- [Dr. Matt] Okay.

[01:32:54.03]
(upbeat music)

[01:33:20.08]
- I figured that dying is just the end,

[01:33:24.00]
and that it's a big, black, boring,

[01:33:26.03]
horrible void afterwards.

[01:33:29.05]
Not that I wanna believe that,

[01:33:31.04]
but some part of me
just has never believed

[01:33:35.05]
that there was anything else.

[01:33:38.08]
Until Tom came back.

[01:33:40.04]
All of a sudden zoom from,

[01:33:42.02]
Tom always comes from up here somewhere.

[01:33:43.09]
Zoom down, he was
standing behind the chair,

[01:33:47.03]
and kind of like leaning into me,

[01:33:50.01]
and with his head like kind
of resting on my shoulder,

[01:33:53.00]
with his head up against
the side of my head.

[01:33:55.08]
And he just stayed there
for the longest time.

[01:33:58.01]
And it really is this strange energy

[01:33:59.05]
that comes from up high,
and it comes zipping around.

[01:34:02.01]
And it's not really attached
to the world we live in.

[01:34:08.09]
One conversation I had with him,

[01:34:11.01]
I was telling him that it was
really nice to have him around

[01:34:13.06]
'cause it was really hard to
live day-to-day without him.

[01:34:19.03]
But then I said, "Well, but
if it's your time to go,

[01:34:22.03]
and you've got to go
dissipate into the universe,

[01:34:23.05]
and become one with it all,

[01:34:25.03]
you know, don't hang around here for me."

[01:34:26.08]
I said, "I'll survive."

[01:34:28.06]
And I got this very
clear message that said,

[01:34:30.05]
"You idiot, I've got
nothing else to do now."

[01:34:33.02]
You know, so he doesn't
have anything else to do.

[01:34:37.07]
He's free.

[01:34:38.08]
He can do what he wants to do.

[01:34:39.07]
So he's come and visited me probably

[01:34:41.09]
about three or four times now.

[01:34:42.08]
- [Peter] Why do you think he's only come

[01:34:45.05]
three or four times?

[01:34:46.08]
Why doesn't he just hang
around all the time?

[01:34:50.03]
- I mean, I can only,

[01:34:51.07]
I mean, you know, he's never
given any kind of indication.

[01:34:53.05]
I can only guess.

[01:34:55.00]
Because I think it would
probably be bad for me.

[01:34:57.02]
I couldn't get on with my life,

[01:34:59.03]
which is hard enough
to get on with anyways.

[01:35:06.00]
And he's gone.

[01:35:06.09]
I mean, he's dead.

[01:35:08.05]
So I think he is somewhere else.

[01:35:11.05]
It's like, you know, I can't go there,

[01:35:14.06]
he can't come here that
often or something.

[01:35:16.01]
I don't know.

[01:35:18.03]
But I think mostly it's because he's dead,

[01:35:19.06]
and he knows he is.

[01:35:22.02]
So he's not, like, stuck here.

[01:35:30.01]
♪ Well I met him on a Sunday ♪

[01:35:33.02]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:35:39.01]
♪ And I missed him on Monday ♪

[01:35:42.02]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:35:48.07]
♪ Well I found him on Tuesday ♪

[01:35:51.06]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:35:58.03]
♪ And I dated him Wednesday ♪

[01:36:01.05]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:36:07.08]
♪ And I kissed him on Thursday ♪

[01:36:11.02]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:36:17.04]
♪ And he didn't come Friday, no ♪

[01:36:21.00]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:36:26.06]
♪ When he showed up Saturday ♪

[01:36:30.05]
♪ Ooh ♪

[01:36:37.00]
♪ I said, bye, bye, baby ♪

[01:36:42.00]
- Ah, Mr. Bones?

[01:36:43.03]
- Yes, Mr. Telapider?

[01:36:44.09]
- Could you tell me what
Gertrude Stein's last words

[01:36:47.07]
to Alice B. Toklas were?

[01:36:49.04]
- Alice turned to Gertrude
on her deathbed and said,

[01:36:51.08]
"Gertrude, what's the answer?"

[01:36:54.04]
- And what did Gertrude reply?

[01:36:56.05]
- "What's the question?"

[01:37:20.06]
(upbeat music)

[01:37:33.05]
♪ Goodbye sadness ♪

[01:37:35.07]
♪ Goodbye goodbye ♪

[01:37:38.00]
♪ I don't need you anymore ♪

[01:37:44.02]
♪ I wet my pillow every night ♪

[01:37:50.02]
♪ But now I saw the light ♪

[01:37:56.01]
♪ Goodbye goodbye sadness ♪

[01:38:02.02]
♪ I don't need you anymore ♪

[01:38:07.09]
♪ Goodbye goodbye sadness ♪

[01:38:14.01]
♪ I can't take it anymore ♪

[01:38:20.02]
♪ Goodbye sadness ♪

[01:38:23.02]
♪ Goodbye goodbye ♪

[01:38:26.01]
♪ I don't need you anymore ♪

[01:38:31.08]
♪ I lived in fear every day ♪

[01:38:37.08]
♪ But now I'm going my way ♪

[01:38:44.00]
♪ Goodbye goodbye sadness ♪

[01:38:49.08]
♪ I don't need you anymore ♪

[01:38:55.07]
♪ Goodbye goodbye sadness ♪

[01:39:02.00]
♪ I can't take it anymore ♪