One of the reasons why the song I Am What I Am from La Cage aux Folles is a gay anthem is the fact that it helped give us a sense of pride in the eighties at a time when thousands and thousands of friends and lovers were wiped out by AIDS. Half of the original Broadway cast of the show had died before the show ended its run in 1987. Even the composer Jerry Herman himself found out that he was infected.
The 18th international medical conference to combat HIV opens in Boston this week-end. Huge progress has been made in the fight against this horrible disease since those days when yours truly and friends lived in constant fear, desperately hoping to survive until something - a cure, or at least medication to help prolong life - had been invented.
Today, well-medicated HIV-positive people's expected life-span is practically as long as that of uninfected people. We do not have a cure yet, but the next best thing which is not so bad at all. We dared not hope for that back in the eighties for fear that our hopes would be crushed along with the many souls that fell victim to the disease around us.
That is why this song always stirs up mixed emotions of deep gratitude and melancholy in me.
I am honoured to be travelling to Boston and so damn grateful every day for still being around.
And I will never, never forget you guys. This one's for you.
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