At 54, Cleve Jones is Ready for his Comeback

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Monday, July 13, 2009 by The Associated Press

At 54, Cleve Jones is Ready for his Comeback

by Lisa Leff


PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Cleve Jones is happy. As happy as he has ever been, thank you. He has a labor union job he loves, powerful allies in Hollywood and Washington, guys to date. Best of all, a new generation of gay activists has embraced him as the mentor he once had, the man whose story he helped deliver to the screen in the movie "Milk."

Call it a cultural confluence, call it a comeback. Now 54 and the closest the gay rights movement has to a living legend, the former protege to a political martyr and creator of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is busily planning his next act - a march on the nation's capital that he hopes will usher in the final era in his community's struggle for acceptance.

"There was a time when I thought I would never be happy again," Jones says, standing barefoot in the tiki-torched yard of the California desert bungalow where he has lived since 1999 but is rarely home long enough to enjoy. "I feel so connected to the movement again."

That he feels compelled to comment on his good fortune says a lot about the twists Jones' own life took after 1978, the year openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was assassinated.

Culture watchers will remember that Jones, the 23-year-old City Hall intern portrayed in "Milk," went on to create the 47,000-panel quilt that humanized the lives lost to AIDS. Less widely known is that during the decade he spent weaving one of the world's largest folk art projects into the nation's fabric, Jones was preparing to die himself. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/13-5

[xchrom]

1. recommend -- we love ya cleve. nt

[Starry Messenger]

2. That is happy news.

recommend.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. I remember reading about Cleve in Randy Shilts' "And the Band Played On".

It's really gratifying to find him still alive and going strong.

[HillbillyBob]

4. Thank You Cleve,

It has been 27 years since I was diagnosed. It has not been easy and most of the people I know are gone. I still cry sometimes just thinking how we were just ignored.
I have seen portions of the quilt at pride fest in Fort Lauderdale with some friends that are no longer here and we cried so our hearts were breaking, for the ones gone before and for the fact of the remembrance it represented.
I don't live in Fla anymore the stress of the city and dealing with medicaid as conceived by jebbie bush was killing me. My partner of almost 14 years and I live on a little piece of land in rural North Carolina, we are starting an eco farm.
It is hard to believe that I am actually planning for a future. Since we are not legal to marry here we are saving up to go to Vermont and do so, then return and start/join the fight for marriage equality here. Starting from scratch all over again in a new state building a life is something I could not even imagine even 10 years ago.

Starting the equality fight is still kind of more than I can cope with. We feel that coming home with a license and having our friends and relatives to our new farm will be the best way to kick it off. Besides we have never had a vacation of any kind.
My mother is to come and his mom is not so hot on the idea, but two of his gay aunts are planning and some of our new (straight, not narrow) neighbors are to be here and my partners coworkers and their spouses too.

[enigmatic]

5. Welcome back, Cleve

:toast:

[myrna minx]

6. Welcome back Cleve.

:hug: The world needs you.