Search the Repository
Menu
Description
Bert Wylen presents Gaydreams, broadcast on November 19, 1995. Jim Ludwin shares updates on the successful results of an experimental trial for the HIV prevention drug PMPA. Wylen presents national news updates, including the conclusion of a lengthy custody battle between two lesbian mothers, another lesbian couple’s effort to adopt each other’s biological children, conceived with the same sperm donor, concerns voiced by gay settlers in Israel following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Colorado’s anti-gay Amendment 2, a Colorado appeals court’s decision to affirm the lower court’s ruling in the wrongful discrimination case Borquez v. Ozer & Mullen, and AT&T’s decision to maintain plans to offer a workplace homophobia workshop at a Massachusetts warehouse following consumer backlash. “Waitin’ For the Man” by Lou Reed plays. Wylen interviews Victor Bockris about his biographies Lou Reed: The Biography and Transformer: The Lou Reed Story. Wylen and Bockris examine Reed’s carefully constructed persona, including his self-mythologizing, volatile behavior, and individualistic approach to collaboration. They also cover Reed’s longBockris reflects on the political sensibilities of both Andy Warhol and Lou Reed, particularly their self-interested engagement with marginalized communities, and discusses Reed’s traumatic experience as a teenager undergoing electroconvulsive therapy in an attempt to alter his sexual orientation, his lifelong bisexuality, and his seven-year marriage to Rachel, a transgender woman. Wylen and Bockris discuss Reed’s decades-long struggle with substance use and his eventual sobriety during the height of the AIDS crisis, as well as the fraught 1993 Velvet Underground reunion, marked by Reed’s persistent egocentrism. “Hello It’s Me” by Lou Reed and John Cale plays. Wylen then shares local updates, including J.A.L. v. E.P.H., a custody dispute between a former lesbian couple in Germantown who conceived a child together, public hearings on a proposed city council bill requiring Philadelphia healthcare facilities to provide HIV testing to pregnant women, and event, support group, and workshop announcements. “Sweet Jane” by Lou Reed plays. Brian Cahill reviews Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia by Tony Kushner, staged at the Miller Theatre (FKA, Merriam Theatre) and Annenberg Center in Philadelphia. “Andy Warhol” by David Bowie and “What’s Good” by Lou Reed plays. Wylen signs off to “The Difference” by Todd Rundgren.