Shane

— tim barrus

Shane Ortega is a New York City high school student who does sex work in Soho. He describes himself as “low on the food chain.” Shane has asked to become a part of Cinematheque. It’s not up to me. It’s up to his peers; the other boys already in Cinematheque. They will decide. What Shane doesn’t understand is that the boys of Cinematheque will challenge him to show them his life.

I have major problems with this adolescent. The problems are mine. The kid is probably a musical genius. He wants to join Cinematheque but he doesn’t want to give up sex work because — he says — he needs the money. I do believe him. He could be a very gifted filmmaker. He is quite talented. Has a great eye. Has a great ear. But he’s at-risk. Big Time. I am not even concerned about his tricks. I have so little empathy when it comes to tricks. I am concerned about the kid. Just this week, the remains of an eight-year-old in NYC (the kid I am writing about lives not far from where we are looking to move) were found in a refrigerator. This will not evolve into anything like that. But the kid is AT-RISK, and I have big problems investing in him because I just don’t want to inhabit another world of hurt. I am hoping that if given enough time to work on it, and some positive peer interactions, he might see advantages in not feeling compelled to do sex work as I can see very clearly it is eating away at his person and his soul.

This video is his first shot at it.

IS TIME TURNING AROUND - video: tim barrus and shane ortega

Touch your thighs, I’m the lonely one

Remember that last sweat, because that was the right one

Oh, all your mysteries are moving in the sun

I show some love and respect

Wanna get some love and respect

Baby you can see that the gazing eye won’t lie

Don’t give up your lover tonight

Cause it’s just you, me and this wire, alright

Let’s tend to the engine tonight

Oh

She found a lonely salve

She keeps on waiting for time out there

Oh love, can you love me babe?

Love, is this loving babe?

Is time turning around?

Feast your eyes, I’m the only one

Control me, console me

‘Cause that’s just how it should be done.

Oh, all your history’s like fire from a busted gun

I show some love and respect

I don’t wanna get a life of regret

But baby you can see that the gazing eye won’t lie

Don’t give up your lover tonight

She found a lonely salve

She keeps on waiting for time out there

Oh love, can you love me babe?

Love, is this loving babe?

Is time turning around?

We slips into the bedroom

Babe, you know me, this is alright.

Holding we’ll make soon

Will sustain us through the night

Inside my bedroom baby

Touch me, oh tonight

Poses, we’ll make some

Will reveal our sense of right

You should be in my space

You should be in my life

You should be in my space

You should be in my life

You could be in my space

AIDS Whore

Dear Tim, You are the writer who wrote Genocide and you wrote Mineshaft. I have both books. I have everything you ever wrote in Mach. Were you in Paris then?

I am a Sunset Boulevard Bitch Whore who has AIDS. But I am still doing sex work to survive. I send video of my work. Do not throw up too much. How do I eat even living on the street if I do not do this?

I have never told anyone all of this. But you are saying to show you our lives. The violence in this video is my life. It is my death as well. If you think it makes you sick to see someone eating shit you should try being the guy who has to eat someone’s shit. It is the only way I know that make money to live. It is not even that much money.

In this vid I am behind the camera but in others I am in a lot. In this I set it on timer one time when they fucked me. I know that doing this with AIDS is bad. But that is the story and that is my life.

Tim Barrus:

Dear AIDS Whore, I am glad that those books give me some kind of street creds but I am not going to lay any kind of trip on you that has to do with good or bad. My trip will have to do with life and death.

I think that perhaps one of the reasons the video goes by so quickly is because the age of the whore (you) could be a real issue.

You are committing a crime by having this kind of contact with these people and not disclosing HIV. I do not know if I can put a video on the Internet where a crime is being committed. I am at a loss here. The video is shocking.

I need to talk to the people I work with. I hear that this is your life. I am personally inclined to segregate this video into the videos we might show in a NYC art exhibition.

What I hear you saying is that you feel forced into unsafe situations by doing sex work with HIV and that sex work is amazingly violent.

My initial reaction is that you’re already dead. If not, this stuff is going to kill you. It’s suicide.

If those are real police and not the pretend kind, the Los Angeles District Attorney can subpoena the material because it would prosecute officers who piss into people/s mouths. I don’t have a take on it. I usually do. But there is a voice somewhere telling me this is real. Too real. You have some explaining to do.

I think you are mortified by this slow suicide you are imposing on yourself. By not disclosing, you are headed for prison with this stuff. If you think Sunset is a particularly tough street scene, and it is, wait until you go to prison. You wouldn’t last a week in prison.

Let me ask the people I work with for their input. The videos I am getting have some of the most tormenting scenes imaginable. One with a woman being raped by soldiers in Africa.

I hear that this stuff has overwhelmed your lives as has HIV. How I feel about it (how do you look at this stuff and not be despondent) is irrelevant. How the rest of the universe reacts to it is relevant. I do not live in a vacuum and either do you. You are living in a place that has eaten kids alive for a long time. It is killing you, and you are killing you. You might even be killing other people. I suggest you allow that to scare you. GET OFF THE STREET.

Don’t wait for me to come back with a “video policy” of what I can post and what I will not post. You do not have time to fuck around. Get off the street and stop whoring around or you will be a dead sunset blvd LA boy-whore six feet under the ground in a potter’s field. Do it now.

http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2010/09/silver-lake-housing-project-developer-to-meet-with-residents/ This is on Sunset — it looks like they are offering the kinds of services you could definitely use. Even if you couldn’t get into the residence building (you owe it to yourself to check it out) someone there might be able to point you in the right direction. That direction has to include you getting off the street. Getting off the street does not mean a squat. A squat is the street. Another place to start: http://www.covenanthouseca.org/ Having served 160,000 youth. That is a lot of youth. It’s in Hollywood. Check it out.

Tim Barrus: Scratching Out The Violence In Our Lives

The photo features a guy with cum in his mouth and I have scratched the photo significantly.

The way I see it, cum in your mouth is still a violence.

The mouth happens to be a part of the human body that gets a lot of small cuts and abrasions. Allowing cum in your mouth is flirting with HIV. With HIV, you won’t win.

I am asking the people who want to participate in Show Me Your Life to not send me images where there is real violence, and please do not send me images of criminal conduct.

I know these things are a part of your lives. Been there. Done that. I’ve been raped multiple times. Shot. Shot at. Beaten up. Robbed. Enough.

I KNOW how you live because I’ve lived it.

I know that these are things that haunt you and you want to deal with them. So why not here and in an artistic way.

You ask.

Because there ARE limits.

I am despondent that these things happen to so many of you. I am sad that the extent to which these things shape your lives is so far-reaching. So many of you live in enormous pain.

If you need to write it, okay. But I do not want to see it in my face happening. And I do not want to receive stuff where you are committing a crime.

If you need to write it, okay. There is a place for writing it. To tell the story. But the images you are sending of yourselves committing crimes only implicate you unnecessarily.

I am NOT telling you that we do not really want to know your story. Obviously, the stories drive you. But I do not want to see it because I will not be the only person looking at it.

The suits are going to see it, too. Suits who will insert law enforcement into your lives. Because the suits are law enforcement.

I now have a video where a transvestite is being beaten up and kicked. By two gaymen no less.

Yes, it makes the point that transgendered people are the objects of assault. I know that. But I am going to ask you to describe some of this stuff in words because the images of people being hurt suck to look at. They end up making the people who view these things feel impotent. We might feel impotent but we are not impotent. There are things we can DO about the violence that is directed at us.

Personally, I just can’t be saturated with it. It’s like looking at pictures of genocide. After a while, it leaves you cold and sickened.

Write it down. Writing it down can help you to articulate not just that something happened (which is what images do) but in writing you can explain how you FEEL about it.

Write that down, too. It’s important. I know these things define how you live. The struggle is one of not giving them a power they do not deserve.

Cum in someone’s mouth is not a turn-on to me. I have scratched it out. It is a violence.

You CAN tell your story. Show me your life.

United States of America

WARNING: Explicit Imagery and Colloquial Language

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)

Trigger

Dear Tim Barrus, I have been reading your books and blogs for as long as I have been able to read. I see that you will be working with the Umthombo kids in South Africa. My understanding is that this work is to get kids off the street. I want to write to you about that.

I live in Los Angeles. I saw you guys when you and Cinematheque came and stayed at Alta Cinega. I have always wondered what it would be like to stay in Jim Morrison’s old room. Kinda creepy. You did not notice me watching you. I live down the block from there. A bunch of us hustlers share a room.

I have tried so many times to get off the street. Would you be willing to help me by allowing me to be in Show Me Your Life? I could show you my life, but it could only be with writing. I love to write. I could not do photos or any of the pimps around here would gut me as soon as look at me. Everything around here is criminal activity. They cannot know I am even writing this.

Why can’t writing words be like a photograph? Does it have to be video? I am so depressed. You friended me on Facebook but you would not remember me. We were never really friends. I saw when you were on Facebook that some kid had written to you about suicide. You hit the roof. You said the kid could not write his way out of it. Maybe I need help 2. I think what I need more than anything is for some1 just to listen without judging me. I judge myself hard enough.

You have said many times that people cannot believe your life. As a whore I can. I can believe it all. Not many people could believe my life either. But if I do this you need to know that writing about my life and showing it to you would mean illegal stuff. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. You know my neighborhood. You know how we survive. I’m turning tricks on the street. I’m sick and depressed and suicidal. I can’t go to some counselor because I know too much about drug dealing. They would turn me in. It is illegal to do what I am doing if you have HIV. I have HIV and if I get caught doing play for pay I can go to the California youth authority. It is a jail place. It is very bad there. Kids like me are raped there all the time.

If video can help some homeless kid in Africa get off the street by like you say giving kids a voice then maybe it would help someone like me. I would understand if you said no. I need help. They call me Trigger cuz they like to ride me. I cannot show my face.

Tim Barrus:

After thinking about it for a while, what strikes me about Trigger and his letter is how similar his situation is as any of the kids in Africa who are living on the street with untreated HIV. The analogies are amazing.

There’s a lot of interest in Show Me Your Life. I suppose I will have to draw the line somewhere. I think there are ways to facilitate Trigger to show us his life without putting him in danger.

At Cinematheque, it’s what we do.

There are counselors in LA who would not turn you in. You don’t seem ready to hear that right now, but it needs to be said. I will keep saying it.

So you want to show me your life.

You know where to find me.

Pascal

Dear Trigger, Tim Barrus has asked you to show him your life. Tim Barrus is lying. He wants to get you off the street because the street is killing you. He also wants to shove what living that life is about in the faces of mainstream culture.

I lived with Tim Barrus for five years. He moved back to the States last year because his health was failing. I miss him so badly it hurts. Tim got me off the streets in 2005. Even before his scandal of having written under a pseudonym. If you think that is a scandal then you do not know what a scandal is. We were having coffee in le Café Marly. If you know Tim this is one of his favorite spots on the planet. Le Café Marly is in the Richelieu wing of the Louvre. I could never afford to eat there. Tim never ate there because he doesn’t eat. He picks at his pastry. One little crumb at a time. That is what I was. A little crumb of pastry nothing.

Tim asked me what it was I wanted. I have always known what I wanted. I just never knew how to get it. I want to dance. No one in my entire life had ever asked me what it was I wanted. No one. I was shocked. I could barely mumble. I was never that important to anyone. I was just a homeless whore turning tricks under bridges. That day I left the street. I was important to someone.

I am dancing now. I do it every day. I am writing this for Trigger. I was touched by what he wrote because I have been there. Trigger is lucky he has the room and friends in it. But I would ask him if he is important to anyone?

I read anything and everything Tim writes. That outreach is far, far more than anyone knows. I do not know how to get money to Trigger. But I am betting Tim does. So I am sending Tim some money. I am asking him to find Trigger a doctor. Trigger I want you to go to whoever Tim finds who will see you. Tim knows the best infectious disease specialists in the world. He will find them and he will pay them with my money and you must go. Do it for me. Like the song says, every day is my birthday. You must start being important to someone. You do not know me but please give that to me. Say you will go. You must start that process by being important to yourself. When I dance today I will think of you.

Tim Barrus:

Pascal, I have received another email from Trigger. As you have demonstrated all the stuff with him that a mentor does, I hereby knight you with this sword as the Official Royal Trigger Mentor. You know more about suicide, drugs, disease, crime, murder, district attorneys, attorneys, jails, prisons, sledgehammer HIV treatment, Big Pharma, and medical quackery than I do so I insist you are the designated Trigger Mentor. There is a shortage of Dronabinal in the States. I have to scratch some up before this demerol wears off. As a schedule III controlled substance that contains delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), I may not be able to find any. 

Trigger:

Dear Pascal, Thank you for the money to see the docter. I did go. If I do not take the HIV pills I will be dead. I have some free ones from the free clinic but they said next time I had to go on a waiting list. The pills are 3k. I do not make that much money in a month. How do I live and eat? It sounds like you have to be in the street to even qualify for the pills. At this price I could never do it. So I hope I get on that waiting list. I do not know how I can turn tricks and take all these pills. It is going to look a little weerd. Please do not tell me not to turn tricks. I hate tricks. I only let them fuck me for the money. I have anal clap. It is bad. I got those pills 2. My life is getting complicated. Thank you for the money. Your friend, Trigger.

Pascal:

Trigger, Turning unprotected tricks when you know you have HIV is a felony. They will pick you up, and lock you up, and throw the key away. Why surrender your life to them? Anal gonorrhea is serious. In someone who has HIV, it can kill you. I know that tricks will offer to pay you more if you will ditch the condom. I used to turn tricks, too, you know. These men do not care shit about you, Trigger. You are surrendering your life to them as well. How much life are you going to have left if you have given all the pieces away? You need to think about these things. I am sending you more money. It is for food. You are right about one thing. I am your friend.

***

Medical Cannabis/Marijuana, Cannaboids (Marinol/Cesamet), Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)/Dronabinol

Medical cannabis (also referred to as medical marijuana) is the use of cannabis and its constituent cannabinoids such as THC as a physician-recommended form of medicine or herbal therapy. The Cannabis plant from which the cannabis drug is derived has a long history of medicinal use, with evidence dating back to 2,737 BC.  Medical cannabis remains a controversial issue worldwide.

Synthetic cannabinoids are available as prescription drugs in some countries. Examples include Marinol, available in the United States and Canada, and Cesamet, available in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and also in the United States.

Investigators at Columbia University published clinical trial data in 2007 showing that HIV/AIDS patients who inhaled cannabis four times daily experienced substantial increases in food intake with little evidence of discomfort and no impairment of cognitive performance. They concluded that smoked marijuana has a clear medical benefit in HIV-positive patients. In another study in 2008, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found that marijuana significantly reduces HIV-related neuropathic pain when added to a patient's already-prescribed pain management regimen and may be an "effective option for pain relief" in those whose pain is not controlled with current medications.

Mood disturbance, physical disability, and quality of life all improved significantly during study treatment. Despite management with opioids and other pain modifying therapies, neuropathic pain continues to reduce the quality of life and daily functioning in HIV-infected individuals. Cannabinoid receptors in the central and peripheral nervous systems have been shown to modulate pain perception. No serious adverse effects were reported, according to the study published by the American Academy of Neurology.

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), also known as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC), Δ1-THC (using an older chemical nomenclature), or dronabinol, is the main psychoactive substance found in the cannabis plant. There is no evidence to suggest that THC is physically addictive.

A synthetic version of THC was administered to participants called “dronabinal”; the main psychoactive substance found in the cannabis plant. A number of studies show that THC provides medical benefits for cancer and AIDS patients by increasing appetite and decreasing nausea. The drug also showed remarkable ability to relieve pain associated with cancer.

Dronabinol is the International Nonproprietary Name (INN) for a pure isomer of THC, (-)-trans-Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, that is, the main isomer in cannabis. It is sold as Marinol (a registered trademark of Solvay Pharmaceuticals). Dronabinol is also marketed, sold, and distributed by PAR Pharmaceutical Companies under the terms of a license and distribution agreement with SVC Pharma LP, an affiliate of Rhodes Technologies.

Par Pharmaceutical Reports Adjusted EPS Of $0.49 For First Quarter 2009: Strong Quarter Driven by Improved Margins and Higher Sales of Select Generic Products. Woodcliff Lake, NJ, May 6, 2009 – Par Pharmaceutical Companies, Inc. (NYSE:PRX) today reported results for the first quarter ended March 28, 2009.

Par reported total revenues of $204.0 million and net income of $16.1 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, which included a change in estimate relating to the final Pentech settlement agreement, restructuring-related costs, a milestone payment to MonoSol Rx, and a required change in accounting principle that results in non-cash interest expense (FSP APB 14-1). Adjusting for these items, earnings per diluted share were $0.49 for the three month period ended March 28, 2009. This is compared to reported revenues of $154.9 million and net income of $1.4 million, or $0.04 per diluted share for the same period in 2008 as adjusted for the adoption of FSP APB 14-1, which became effective January 1, 2009. Adjusting for one-time items, earnings per diluted share were $0.17 in the first quarter of 2008.

First Quarter Highlights Key Product Sales (Net sales comparisons at the product level are to fourth quarter 2008)

Dronabinol: Net sales for the first quarter 2009 were $7.0 million. This compares to $6.4 million in the fourth quarter 2008. Through the first quarter of 2009, Par was one of two distributors of generic Marinol®. 

OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATION

Let’s Talk About Sex (Workers) by Zoe Hudson (July 7, 2011)

Let’s hear it for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Really.  In a decision yesterday, they defended the right to speak freely about sex workers and in so doing will help us fight HIV/AIDS.

Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic more than 30 years ago, families, communities, and government have been forced to have difficult conversations about messy topics.  Those most in need of HIV treatment and prevention are also people deemed criminals around the world: sex workers, drug users, and men who have sex with men.   The U.S. global AIDS program, unhelpfully, asks funding recipients to take a pledge to “oppose prostitution” as a condition of getting funding.  While it is unclear what this means—must you send them to jail or simply speak ill of them?—it has prevented debate and discussion where it is most needed.

The Court of Appeals agrees.  Yesterday, an appellate court affirmed that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to free speech, including the right to debate, have opinions, or have no opinion at all on the subject of prostitution.  In making this decision, they took into account that the debate about prostitution is integral to fighting HIV/AIDS.  There are differences of opinion and we need to discuss them.  Putting a muzzle on funding recipients violates the U.S. Constitution and undermines our global health programs. Unfortunately, the decision only provides protection to U.S. groups.  Foreign NGOs don’t have first amendment protections and are still gagged.

Here are excerpts from the opinion:

The right to communicate freely on such matters of public concern lies at the heart of the First Amendment.  The Policy Requirement offends that principle, mandating that Plaintiffs affirmatively espouse the government’s position on a contested public issue where the differences are both real and substantive.  For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) have recognized advocating for the reduction of penalties for prostitution—to prevent such penalties from interfering with outreach efforts—as among the best practices for HIV/AIDS prevention.

The government has, by compelling NGOs to affirmatively pledge their opposition to prostitution, stepped beyond what might have been appropriate to ensure that its anti-prostitution message would not be “garbled” or “distorted.”
We do not mean to imply that the government may never require affirmative, viewpoint-specific speech as a condition of participating in a federal program.  To use an example supplied by Defendants, if the government were to fund a campaign urging children to “Just Say No” to drugs, we do not doubt that it could require grantees to state that they oppose drug use by children.  But in that scenario, the government’s program is, in effect, its message.  That is not so here.  The stated purpose of the Leadership Act is to fight HIV/AIDS, as well as tuberculosis, and malaria.  Defendants cannot now recast the Leadership Act’s global HIV/AIDS-prevention program as an anti-prostitution messaging campaign.

The very excellent attorneys at the Brennan Center who successfully argued the case have much more information on their website.  But be warned, your new ability to talk about sex won’t necessarily make it sexy.

Tim Barrus Comment:

Cinematheque Films and Real Stories Gallery and I are involved in the creation of a Video/Art program called Show Me Your Life where kids at-risk are given video cameras and challenged to go out into the world and film their lives. Usually, it’s a journalist who does this. But we never see these lives as portrayed by the people who live them. Inevitably, we are going to have kids who do sex work in a variety of countries (Thailand, Congo, USA, France, Brazil, etc). These kids are at risk for HIV and some of them are at risk for violence as they already have HIV.

The world is not necessarily Disneyland. Many of our video cameras have been returned to us by social service agencies who have articulated: “we did not understand prostitution would be included in your program. We cannot participate.”

We have always said that children who are at-risk are often at risk for prostitution. This is called survival sex. These children are making videos of their lives. Those videos are stunning. The violence children live surrounded by is extraordinary. We have just never wanted to see it. HIV/AIDS is not an abstract idea in Show me Your Life. It is an everyday reality. Children forced into survival sex is repugnant. Yet the issue must be met head on to understand how it works.

These children at-risk are in need of voices, too. They are all too often silenced.

Silence equals death.

We will continue to arm children with video cameras and we will continue to tell them: show me your life. It isn’t always pretty and it isn’t always acceptable. Until we can face and understand HOW CHILDREN ON THE PLANET REALLY LIVE THEIR LIVES, we will never meet the challenge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

***

Cinematheque Films: The Studio Arts Education: Students are allowed access to fair use art materials and mixed media in the teaching of iconic manipulation in photographic, video and film production. Representations and facsimiles posted here are presented as teaching tools and instruments employed to instruct students in the techniques and application of mixed media art and collage. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act allows art-teaching entities the fair use of such materials in classroom and teaching-research applications.

http://TIM@SHOWMEYOURLIFE.ORG