Latest / The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+ / Finding Belonging After 50: Ed Wolf on Loneliness, AIDS, and Community

Transcript

Finding Belonging After 50: Ed Wolf on Loneliness, AIDS, and Community · The Wisdom Trust Podcast for Gay Men 50+

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Wisdom Cross and Lord Crawford.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is for gay men over 50 who says there's more to this stage of life than we've been taught.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: For connection, meaning, honesty, and possibility.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode is a conversation with a thoughtful gay man who's navigating the deeper questions that often emerge in the second half of life.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: These are not conversations about decline, they are conversations about becoming.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Wisdom Trust.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here today with Ed Wolfe, and we are going to be having an amazing conversation.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in with Ed, what I would like to share with you as a reminder is we're not here necessarily as people who have everything figured out, have all the answers.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gay men over 50 living our full lives in full color and regalia and learning and growing as we go.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: These conversations are intended to inspire, to shed light on different perspectives, and to help us grow, especially if you're maybe feeling a little bit stuck or at a loss right now.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want these conversations to really open up different ways of thinking and being in the world.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to move into meeting Ed.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so Ed is the oldest of 10.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Born in New York, moved to Florida as a kid, returned to Manhattan in 71, and got involved with the gay liberation activities that were taking off full force at that time.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's exciting.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Moved to San Francisco at 76 and lived there for 44 years.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Got really involved in the HIV field in 1983 and remained so for almost 40 years.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ed's retired now and living in Portland, Oregon.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Very involved with the Radical Fairy community.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's writing a memoir about the work that he's done, and it's featured in an award-winning documentary, We Were Here.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll definitely want to hear a little bit more about that, Ed.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome and share a little bit more about you, your journey.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about Ed.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I uh I've just come back from an almost a week-long gathering of gay men and some women down in Mendocino, California.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm feeling very full of that experience.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And also I do really well in groups.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't the case when I was much younger, and I can talk more about why that's different now.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But now I really do really well in groups.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm a leader and an instigator, and I like to create, come up with fun ideas for people to do.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really feeling that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: The summertime here is in the northwest, gathering time.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So there's another one coming up at the middle of June and the end of June, one in the middle of August.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a it's a good time.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I like going to gatherings where there is a spectrum of ages, and the fairies are pretty good at having people in their 20s and 30s all the way up to their 70s and 80s.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so you get to viscerally actually see a spectrum of the community.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, issues about being elders and being mentees and mentors, and I mean, personally, I find it very encouraging that this is gonna might sound strange, but the the gay people keep coming.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, they just keep coming.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're in this community environment and realizing, you know, at this stage in life or probably earlier that you thrive in that.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So coming from a family of 10, my gosh, did that plant the seed for a little bit of this community stuff?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I didn't realize it at the time.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was I on the my the way back from the gathering is a 10-hour drive.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I had a chance to talk to my traveling companion.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, because there were so many kids and I was the oldest, I couldn't do anything in high school.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: The minute school was over, I had to get home.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of work to do, and I was very, very connected with my family.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, and I'm sure this is true for many people, things happening to us when we're younger, we don't realize then how it's going to imprint on us in both good ways and challenging ways as we get older.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: So being the oldest of ten, my mother had a set of twins, my mother had a set of triplets, like they were all these babies and caregiving and attention to people being younger and how to get along.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd never thought of it before, but it was like basic training for moving into a community in crisis.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: But for so long, I felt like I was kind of a nerd because my whole life was my family.
• 6:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when you matured out of that and and moved away, so what did that look like, leaving all of these these duties and responsibilities as an eldest child?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: What did it look like when you broke free from that?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not that not that maybe that's the wrong language, but no, I think that's that's true.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I went away to college at 17, and I I wasn't very worldly.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: My whole life was my family.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So when I got dropped off in front of the dorm, I I was like very worried, like, how is this gonna work?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I was used to being very social in a group, in a beehive.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: The dormitory was demanded, required being very social in a beehive.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was funny and I knew how to play cards, and you know, the the challenging part of it is that this is in 1966, so we don't even have the word gay yet.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like you don't you don't see any gay people.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew I knew that I had a different relationship with boys than I had with girls.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had never acted on it, so I did have to like kind of cover the jar as well, living in the dorms.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had no word yet, except terrible words, queer, yeah, bag.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have any inkling that there were others like you there, or did that not there wasn't the first couple years?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then I had, you know, this is I love talking about things like this, and I love hearing other people's stories, where like some little thing happens and they have an epiphany, yeah, and then it changes your life forever.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was I'd been at the university for two years, and I was gonna be a teacher because I was so good with kids, and there was a classic, this happened in Florida, classic Florida downpour, and I ran to get out of the rain into a building I'd never been in.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a bulletin board, and I saw it's the USF theater department, and they were having auditions for Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, and I had always wanted to be in theater somehow, but I was terrified of public speaking.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was failing my speech class, and the speech teacher said, because I was so nervous, the speech teacher said, you know, maybe you should be in a play where everything is rehearsed and you're on stage with other people, maybe that'll make you feel more comfortable.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought, the odd couple, I had just seen it, it's so funny, and I auditioned and I got a part, and then like it was a huge change.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Suddenly I was around all these very creative people, some of whom were like masculine women and feminine men, and I realized like, oh, this is this this could be the beginning of something for me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and it was, and in fact, some of the people I connected with there very deeply ended up moving to New York with me.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it was powerful.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I got to bring these people with me, which was wonderful.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, you know, even as late as the mid-70s, we know now HIV was in the community.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So all of them except one ended up dying of AIDS.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry to hear that.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very exciting.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had to tell my parents, I'm not I'm not gonna be a the education major anymore.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna major in theater and English.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And back then you could you could major in liberal arts because you were gonna find a job doing anything, you know.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I finished school.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, anybody who was gay back then was very aware that Stonewall had occurred, and I was aware of like, oh, homosexuals throw rocks at cops.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I need to be.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is where my people are.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So the minute I graduated, I moved to New York, and and then, of course, by then we had the word gay, and you could see gay people on the street, and I mean, this sounds so naive in a way, or simple, but it really helps to see.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that can still happen here, even in modern times when people grow up in small communities, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Where they're like they don't see them.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up in a town of 4,000, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't, I didn't know what was going on inside of me.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I was different.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But and then when I moved to a bigger city to Edmonton, Alberta, where there was a little bit of a gay world, it wasn't as visible because I didn't know how to access it, it was kind of like, oh, you know, so and not that even was years ago too.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I think now still, you know, for folks, well, I guess the apps would maybe change that a little bit, but but that idea of seeing real, real people, you know, living in the way you live, it's like what a liberation that is.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and also like television and movies.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, there's a certainly there's a huge number of depictions of gay and lesbian people that are very negative, but you can also come up come upon many positive images of gay people and especially older gay people who continue to have vibrant lives, have sex, have partners.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's also a shadow side to all of that, because certainly in our community, there's this feeling that you kind of peak at a certain age, and then it's just all kind of downhill.
• 13:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That hasn't been my experience, but I was so tall and thin, and I had terrible buck teeth, and had a bit of a high voice, and I wasn't very confident.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I I lived a good part of my New York years, and even the beginning of San Francisco, feeling I didn't fit in.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I can totally relate to what you're saying.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was that tall, skinny kid, you know, very insecure.
• 13:55
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is one of the if your viewers get a chance to watch We Were Here, because they kept that part of my story, that I moved to New York and then to San Francisco.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was a terrible cruiser.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't someone who could go like, hey, hey, you know, I was terrible.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was like, I was like, hi, my name's Ed.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not sexy when you're on Castor Street trying to connect.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm more like, hi.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just couldn't quite fit into the what I thought and what I saw was kind of the mainstream gay lifestyle.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't even, I mean, I couldn't find a leather boot in my size if I had to.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't find a leather jacket, you know.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I just I I just didn't fit.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so then, you know, I had some straight friends, and I just was coasting along.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I worked, I knew how to type.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: My mother told all of us, you will not graduate without learning to type.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you can do nothing else, if you can type, you can find work.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, I typed, I was a typesetter in New York, San Francisco.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I went to school and it was beautiful, San Francisco.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: My my family moved here and so and to California, and I was just going on with my life, not really knowing what I was gonna do.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then 1981, and the very first beginnings, the news about HIV AIDS, and I remember '83, I went to the very first ever like AIDS vigil, AIDS candlelight vigil for people who were dying already.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was 34 years old, and I I marched with them down Market Street, and at the end of the parade, there were these a young woman with a clipboard saying, Oh hi, would you be interested in doing some volunteer work?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And she gave me something, and I said, Okay.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was about becoming a buddy, like a buddy for someone with AIDS.
• 16:50
  unknown: Right.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: With the Shanti project.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's becoming a shanti volunteer.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when I look back, uh probably other than looking at at the in the theater department at the triads for the odd couple, thinking about and then agreeing to become an AIDS volunteer, uh, those are the two things that really changed my life.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just I had just never been, yeah, except in a few bars, in a large group of queer people who had a unified purpose.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love this ed.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It it's so resonant for me because similarly for me in my 20s, you know, Edmonton, you know, isn't a huge city, it's bigger now, but back then it was, you know, moderate size, the gay community for sure.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But my exposure to gay people was at the bars on the weekend, but not, you know, not big throngs or whatever.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when the AIDS quilt project made its way through one of the galleries there, and my friend Sharon and I went, I was so overwhelmed with all of those things, all of the grief, all of the the it just all came flooding out.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that was brutal in terms of how it kind of cracked me open.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But after that, like you, I got involved in in the AIDS network in Edmonton and met these amazing men who were, oh my God.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they just opened me up to a whole new understanding of who I was.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, going from this insecure young man who just couldn't figure anything out to like looking at these guys in awe and going, like, how they're doing all this amazing work and they're so welcoming and they're so kind.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I I I love what I'm hearing because I can resonate with it so much.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is delicate because, or it's complicated, because of course, AIDS is like one of the worst things that's ever happened to our planet, yeah, to our community.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's still wreaking havoc in many places around the world, but like just about any other event, there's also some light that came out of it.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I are examples of people who kind of got ignited and found our way into the community in a way that we couldn't before, and it was with a purpose, it wasn't just walking down the street going, oh hi, you know.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I still can't do that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I still can't do that, still can't do it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be really fun to try.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's our best crews?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, but but give me a purpose, give me a reason.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like all my friends would go to the bathhouses and the sex clubs, you know.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I tried once, I was just terrible at anonymous sex.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like who wants to talk in the in the sauna?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: No one.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm like trying to go, hi.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: But after AIDS started, if I had a reason to go in, we're doing eventually I did like HIV testing at the sex club or handout pamphlets, and condoms, handing out the condoms, yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'm in.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm in, I have a reason to be there.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what I I mean, what happened for me is, and I think I told you this, is it's complicated to explain, but so many people were dying, and and one of the major diagnoses at the time was called failure to thrive.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Men would just get so thin, so worn down, they might not have a they might not have KS or PCP, but overall, they just they were dying of HIV disease, failure to thrive.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, I had found my place, and I grew and became confident and purposeful and determined, and I began to thrive.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I found a way in to the community that I hadn't been able to be a part of before.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very it's a lot of what my book is about, yeah, about how I went from outside.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: To deep inside, because I had a purpose.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And this is not in any way to put down or minimize people who are good at cruising and working the street and going into a bar or a sex club and knowing how to do it.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just couldn't do it.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I would have been better at it.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't me.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in some ways, it sounds like when you were able to work project-wise and purposefully in the community, that freed you maybe up a little bit from some of that angst.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I fitting in here?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't, I don't get it, right?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, also, the other thing that I've realized is like, I mean, even so far in this in our conversation, I'm kind of making fun of the part of me that wants to go, hi, who are you?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, especially in a crisis, you know, I eventually ended up working on the first dedicated AIDS unit in the world at San Francisco General.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: I became one of the staff counselors there.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly the part of me that was like, hi, my name's Ed, who are you?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: That I always thought was like, oh, I'm such a nerd.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Actually turned into a superpower.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Superpower.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I wasn't afraid to go like to be gentle.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: And who are you?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And how are you doing?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so what worked in a hospital room didn't work in the corridor of a bathhouse.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's so wonderful.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And to all of those, you know, activists out there, legions of them who were doing this work.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you you saw that, you know, I saw that probably to a lesser degree, but wow, you know, and and and and many men who were, you know, HIV positive and and developing AIDS were were doing the work as well, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and and literally fighting for their lives.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And as we know, many, many, most of people who were HIV positive at that time, most of them didn't live.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't live to see the treatments that really didn't arrive and become available till the mid-90s and beyond.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's powerful to realize we went, I remember telling you this the last time we spoke, just so quickly.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it appears in 81, as I had said to you the other day, it's it's it's worthwhile to take just a moment.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: HIV appears 81, 82, 83, the agencies start to form.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Can you volunteer?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Can you be on the night, the night line?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: 84, 85, so now we're four years in, the test finally arrives.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: So for the first time, you could tell if you have HIV rather than just waiting to get sick.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: 86, 87, now we're six years in, ACTA finally coalesces, and activism finally begins.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's six years, and then eighty-eight, eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's fourteen years before there's a successful treatment advance.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Fourteen years.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: How long it took.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's no wonder.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: So many of those early, early people with heads died.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and thinking about it from a slightly different perspective, too.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had this conversation with a few men doing these conversations that you referred to, that some of us who were coming out at that period, you know, in the early mid 80s, when all of a sudden this stuff's in the media, it's like, what's going on?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us were so scared we were celibate, you know, for for I went for a number of years.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was a certain terror that I don't think I was even conscious of.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and like it's a whole that's a whole different discussion, but but how does that shape someone, right?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yes.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And also, I went through that, and because I couldn't cruise and I couldn't do the sex class, I felt bad, bad gay.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a bad gay.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and actually, it's the primary reason I'm here today.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: So what again, what seemed like a part of me that I didn't like actually turned out to be the reason I survived.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a blessing of sorts.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Find the wisdom trust on schoolschool.com slash the dash wisdom dash trust slash about.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Website is wisdomtrust50.com.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Find us on Substack, the Wisdom Trust.com.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not watching this on YouTube, youtube.com slash at the Wisdom Trust 50.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: See you on those platforms.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when you were talking about you know, 14 years for you know the first what finally appeared to be successful medical intervention, how that impacted us living through this, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: That that we were ignored, left to die.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Political statements were made to that effect by the leaders of the time.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, god, yeah.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and like the scarring and the trauma, you know, like I think part of this work around the wisdom trust, too, for me is you know, this isn't a therapeutic community that we're building per se.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is about celebrating and being joyful about this stage in life.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: But like you used the word shadow earlier, like there's still remnants of some of that stuff that that a lot of us need to heal, you know, because it was so harsh and brutal.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we are, I think, I've written about this extensively.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: How many of us I was born in 49, so I'm a classic baby boomer.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: My parents lived through World War II, they were both traumatized, especially my father.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: All of these young men who saw all this horror in Europe and Asia, and then just got dropped back into 40s and 50s America.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go to work, live your life, yeah.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's similar with AIDS, yeah.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like those of us who lost, you know, I lost almost my entire original group of people, yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, uh I'll never really recover from that.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a part of who I am, and I noticed my father, what he wanted to do most of all, was to be down at the corner store, at the corner bar, talking to other vets who were there, and I noticed there is a comfort for me in talking to other gay men of a certain age who were there, yeah, and live through it, and conversely, sometimes there are young men who look at us and realize, like I used to look at my father, and say, God, I wonder what he went through.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what he saw.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just had the experience of being at this gathering last week, and a handful of young men came up to me and and talked to me about that.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about that.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so you you've led this amazing life, probably not the life you were thinking about when you moved to New York and in acting and all of this stuff, right?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And how many souls you've impacted over the decades?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, like it it makes it just, you know, I feel that, saying it out loud.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But here you are now in 2026 having conversations with young people.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: What what does that look like?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are they asking?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: It depends.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's very emotional.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I met I was at this gathering, and there was a young man there who had seen We Were Here.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because this was it's a wonderful documentary, and we it went to Sundance and I went to Berlin with it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was award-winning documentary.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of people have seen it, but but I don't know who's seen it.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I went to the gathering.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: This young man came up to me with tears in his eyes, and he was like, Are you Ed from We Were Here?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And like we were getting ready to start dancing.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was not in, and I had to go like okay, get focused here.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is a moment here.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: This young man is having a moment, and I said, Yes, I am, and how nice to see you.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and he spoke about not being able to fit in, and how my story of like trying to find my way to fit into the community really spoke to him was quite quite moving, and then also other people just want to know like, how did you get through it?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how do you get through 14 years of like everyone seemingly around you dying?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is like a perfect setup for what I want to talk about next.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think you want me to too, which is that I got through it by being involved with groups and being involved in the community.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think the way you get through difficult times, there's a great I've done some work in Africa, and one of the great slogans there, Lauren, you'll love this, is if you want to go quickly, go alone.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Go together, and that has been a mantra for me.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do better in a group.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now the challenge is I grew up in a beehive, so throw me in a beehive, I'm gonna be fine.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a harder role for people for whom a group is like too much stimulation, or I don't know how to handle that.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing we were gonna talk today, I was thinking, what would my advice be?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's my suggestion?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just like any other life skill, older gay men are always at risk of isolating, yes, being alone, being lonely, shutting down, and just like somebody who needs to go to the gym and get stronger and doesn't want to go, but they gotta go, there's a part of me that feels it's important to find a way, even if it's just to go to a cafe or a book club at the library, to find your way in.
• 35:41
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy for me to say because I am, I mean, the gay community in Portland, Oregon is like we're in a golden era.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's incredible.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: We play cards together, we have fairy coffee, we go to movies, we have gathering, we go to the holiday.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's we're a band of brothers and sisters.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not easily found everywhere.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, and the thing about that too is it takes intention, right?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like someone has to take a lead to get things going, and getting things going takes time.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I know with this Wisdom Trust project that I'm working on.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's lots of good things going on in all over the world, but we need more, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So just one more.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: That, and especially people who aren't aren't in you know, places where there is a big hub of gay men, you know.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I talked to some of the guys who are in Palm Springs, and they're like, I don't know what you're talking about, loneliness.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, there's you could do anything any night of the week, pretty much.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's something going on.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: But even within that, sometimes the most intense form of loneliness is when you're in a sea of people and you just feel like invisible or unseen.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's also so sometimes the superficial connection is also not enough, right?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like where can we meet to have deeper conversations?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that I want to cultivate here is to talk about the challenges with aging in all respects, right?
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: But also the beautiful part of it.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when we start to shift the narrative from the decline to this is actually a really powerful, you know, time.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the era of wisdom, if you want to use that word, our coming into our fullness of being, like all of that stuff.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say also, you know, loneliness is one of the core experiences of being alive.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you can be at the biggest fairy gathering, at the dance, at the maple, you know, in the heart circle, and boy, you can feel really lonely.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it passes, yeah, but it is one of the core experiences of life.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: At the my experiences, there is an existential loneliness of being, you know, we're not we're not stock on Star Wars where we're all plugged into the we are not that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are alone in our own time, in our own body, but being with groups can really, really help us, and how helpful it can be to be in a group.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: The fair we do lots of heart circles where we come together with a talking talisman, everyone hands it around, and maybe the theme tonight is loneliness.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm telling you, at the end of the meeting, you're gonna feel less lonely, yeah, and then it's gonna come back.
• 39:11
  unknown: Yeah.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's one of the joys of being a human, right?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: We get to experience the range of emotions, and yeah, and it would be folly to think that it's always gonna be like, you know, and and sometimes that grasping for those hot constant high moments ends up creating a lot of problems, right.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Attachments to certain things, you know, substances or or sex or whatever it may be.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like because we're we're fearful of what is that other thing gonna feel like, right?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all that when we have uh specific practices and things and community is part of that, and when we can live in a more sort of an even keel instead of like the highs and the extremes, right?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then then life just has a sweeter and easier flow to it than being like a drama queen of highs and lows.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and also I think it's important that some of us can be hyper-vigilant about our moods and start to go, uh-oh, uh, starting to feel sad.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to pathologize these natural human emotions of anger, sadness, fear, joy, excitement, all of it.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you can get a good reality check by being in a group of other people who go, Oh god, yeah.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are times when I wish I was 22 again and didn't have some of this heaviness I have with me, which is physical and emotional.
• 40:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: You shared a lot, really amazing and beautiful stuff.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us about this stage.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you're working on your book.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I just turned 77.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have two friends who are out there older than me.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: One is starting to fail.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: He hit 85 and had a fall, and so the fall is often so he's eight years ahead of me, very frail, can't drive anymore.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's and he's moving into the final, and I'm very aware of that.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like my energy, my ability to like pull things off, it's all starting to slow down.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's what comes with having a life.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, people are gonna go, why did you just put why are you having fun on the screen when he's talking about?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, fun starts to look different as we age, right?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fun is about being able to show up for a friend, you know, fun is about you know, meeting meeting the radical furries for an event, you know, like it looks different.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and part of these discussions, I hope, is to help people realize if they're not seeing some of the stuff that they're doing through that lens of joy or fun, it's like sometimes it just takes a little attitude adjustment.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, yeah, okay, you know.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or even just like, I mean, it doesn't have to be this massive, I'm gonna go to my first gathering.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Although that would be a huge and wonderful thing to do.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe it's about, you know, starting a little gay coffee on Saturday morning, yeah, where at least once a week you can go to this cafe and you could see several other gay people.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: We do card games.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have fairy coffee, it's very well established.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: But go to the movies tomorrow.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have our own listserv.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you can send an email out going, oh, Midnight Cowboys coming to the Hollywood Theater.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And people will show up.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um I love that.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the things that I've done just uh the last week, so we're recording this at the end of May in 2026.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we created the Wisdom Trust community in on the school platform.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the school platform, you know, you can have your chats and things, and I'll be leading some some group stuff in there, and we'll have other people like you.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna propose something in a minute, a minute.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: But in that platform, there's this map.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so once it starts to populate more and more, you might say you're in Portland or I'm in Victoria.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can click on that map and see are there other folks here from Victoria?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then what we Would love to see happening is like you're saying these little coffee gatherings in real life, real time.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that we move from the virtual to live connections.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually, you know, things like you're talking about, the radical fairies and their their retreats and gatherings, that same thing too, because there can't be too much of that.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like we we need more, right?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sure you're thinking about this, but this is the kind of thing that I'd love to add to like a resource page.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Here's where fairy coffee is in Portland, every Saturday.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: Things like that, where people could go.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's an excellent idea, creating creating a resource page.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I was thinking about about when you were talking about we were here is having that as a like a discussion group within the community as it grows.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: So when we broadcast this podcast, what you and I will do is have a conversation and we'll schedule it so that you know the podcast goes out and then we can have a facilitated discussion around the documentary.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, that would be that would be excellent.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we'll work on that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: So tell me, just in this final bit here, we'll pivot into the sort of like the wrap-up.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking uh the guests here, you, for a little bit of wisdom, a little nugget.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: You've shared a lot, right?
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this might be, you know, blue sky kind of really big, or it could be more more specific in particular.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything you would like to share with the listenerslash viewer?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Without a doubt.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: Depending on where you're at developmentally, 20 something, 30 something, and this and this group, 50, 60, 70 something.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: My experience is that old age is a privilege denied to many, many people, especially in our demographic.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I embrace the aches and pains, the loneliness, looking across the field at all the 30 somethings who can dance all night long, and I can't.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: I embrace all of that because this is what happens when you have a life.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: And all of those people who died of age, the overwhelming number of them would do anything to trade places with us and deal with my knee replacement and my loneliness and my lost partner of many years ago.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: They would trade places because there really is nothing like being alive and the potential that tomorrow something could happen that would change, right?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: I do a joke at these gatherings, constantly doing this.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fun exercise.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'll come up to someone and say, I want to ask you something, but first, will you will you say yes?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Will you agree to say yes?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll go, oh God.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd say, come on.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: I go, all right, and then I'll ask them, will you come over and be a part of this thing?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then the homework for them, for the rest of the gathering, I'll come up to them and go, Do you want it?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll go, yes.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And practicing saying yes, it's it's a good practice.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, old age is a privilege denied to many.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: And try to say yes more than no.
• 48:14
  unknown: Yeah.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love, I love that.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and the the thing of life is a gift.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember when I was in the depths of doing my spiritual work and and you know, this idea, my teacher saying that, you know, life is a gift.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, I don't know about that, you know, because I was the glasses half-empty dude for most of my life, right?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I started to burn off a lot of that stuff that was in there through my practices and what have you, some people will choose therapy, like there's lots of ways to do that work.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: But when we can understand, yes, that what a gift we are, you know, to be able to experience all the stuff, even the crappy stuff, because we get to learn and grow, you know, that we were that one sperm out of the all of those millions and millions of sperm that hit that egg and we got to be here, you know.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so life can be hard.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: It can be brutally hard.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, what I would say to fine-tune that it's not just that life is a gift, but that older age is actually a privilege.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's been denied to many, many, many people.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: So embrace it.
• 49:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: As gay men, it's hard to do because the invisibility and all the things that come with it, but it is a privilege to get to live a long time.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what an amazing achievement to be able to live long enough where it actually makes sense that the only natural, logical, organic answer is that we gotta leave.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: We all have to leave.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is the great tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, is that it was so many young men who never got to live long enough to get a sense of the arc of one's life, yeah.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that arc is oh, it's worth for me, it's worth everything I went through.
• 50:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: Such a rich journey.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, speaking of privilege, it's been a huge privilege for me to have this time with you.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: And however we get to collaborate moving forward, I look forward to that.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share now your Substack link.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, thank you.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: edwolf.substack.com if you're listening.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Ed has some beautiful pros there where you can connect with him, comment, and and develop your own connection.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sharing segments of my memoir, but people are doing all kinds of things on Substack.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely something to explore.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again, Ed.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: All the work you're doing, Lauren.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is it's very profound and moving.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's inspiring.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.