Documentary Filmmaker, senior digital content producer and teacher with a passion for using storytelling to educate people on healthcare, culture, arts, education, equality, human rights and more.
Rock Bottom follows the journeys of seven gay men struggling with meth addiction and recovery against a backdrop of an emerging second wave of HIV infection. From grappling with the drug’s effects on their physical and mental health to wrestling with their darkest sexual desires, Rock Bottom delivers a chilling portrait of a community in crisis. With an unflinching eye the film captures their stories over a two-year period, from sex clubs to hospitals to family gatherings. It takes enormous courage to face these demons, and even more to allow the world to watch.
Why do they do it? Why are so many gay men, in their 20s, 30s, even 40s, men with good jobs, good friends, men in committed relationships, falling prey? These men who on paper seem to have it all, why are so many risking everything for sex? Hot, uninhibited sex. Group sex. Unsafe sex. Crystal Sex.
At blinding speed, Crystal is ushering in a new generation of HIV infection, along with a host of other life-destroying attributes. Unlike HIV alone, Crystal destroys the professional, financial and personal lives of gay men, often in a matter of months. The psychological attributes of Crystal addiction often create self-destructive behavior that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for friends and family, or even professionals, to help. And the numbers are frightening. Anecdotally, more than 1/3 of new HIV infection can be attributed to Crystal use, and new HIV infection rates are rising at historically high rates in the gay community.
In November, 2003, the communities indifference and silence took its toll on AIDS activist and recovering crystal meth addict, Peter Staley. Spending $6,000 of his own money to come up with a campaign that was featured on Verizon phone booths in Chelsea, he created image of 6-packed ab club boy, his face obscured by a mirror disco ball, emblazoned with the words, Buy Crystal, get HIV Free! Finally people had to pay attention.
Rock Bottom shows Peter Staley as he attempts to wake the New York gay community and New York City Health officials up from their complacency coma of the past decade. We watch Staley on his Herculean effort on telling the gruesome story of meth addiction to the world at large.
We’ll also meet Raymond, 47, a successful graphic artist from Minnesota. Introduced to meth by his last boyfriend, he lost his job, home and the patience of many friends and family in just two years. When we’re introduced to him, he is hooked up to an IV in Cabrini Hospital, debilitated from a staph infection as a result of his injection use.
Next is J., 28, HIV-. A singer/songwriter living in New York for the last decade he recently made a splash on the club circuit performing his new single about drugs and sex. He claims that his life really started taking off in August, 2004, when he tried crystal for the first time, got a gold card to the popular New York nightclub, Roxy, and starred in two adult videos for Michael Lucas of Lucas Entertainment.
Paper clips, plastic coffee stirrers, broken umbrellas, are just the tip of the iceberg of found objects that entrepreneur and fashion designer Shelly Xu, uses to create art and high fashion.
More than 200 people climbed the vertiginous three flights of the trendy Norwood Club, to hoist a glass of champagne and celebrate the latest “one-night only,” The Art of Shopping pop-up store. On this night, five women entrepreneurs, all with complementary luxury products from vintage eye wear, handbags, women’s and men’s fashion to affordable art, enthusiastically greeted the steady stream of customers. Continue reading “Women Entrepreneurs “Pop Up” For a Night of Art and Fashion in Chelsea”
Abiezer Mendez, 23, takes a break from his full-time job as an analyst at JPMorgan Chase. Sitting in a Brooklyn Bridge park on this sunny, yet chilly afternoon, he talks about how his high school, Cristo Rey in East Harlem, New York, transformed his life, and the lives of his triplet brother and sister. Facing gang violence in the East Harlem projects where he and his family lived, his high school prepared him not only for college, but prepared him for an internship starting in ninth grade. That discipline helped land Mendez a full scholarship to Fordham University and a coveted position in one of world’s most successful banks. He said Cristo Rey is not only a miracle but “a revolution.”
Abiezer Mendez, 2004 Cristo Rey Graduate. Analyst, JPMorgan Chase
Former President of Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management division, and one of the most visible women on Wall Street, @SallieKrawcheck has set her sights on Washington, bank regulation, social media and sponsors, not mentors, to help women navigate their careers.
Former President of Bank of America’s Global Wealth and Investment Management division, and one of the most visible women on Wall Street, @SallieKrawcheck has set her sights on Washington, bank regulation, social media and sponsors, not mentors, to help women navigate their careers.
The holidays come and go, and so do some of the stores. Especially pop-up ones. We met with a couple of savvy retail entrepreneurs, Kajal Sanghrajka and Natalie Kathleen, to hear about their strategy behind their six-week pop-up store in New York’s fashionable retail mecca, Nolita. Continue reading “Women Entrepreneurs “Pop Up” in Soho”
Rock Bottom follows the journeys of seven gay men struggling with meth addiction and recovery against a backdrop of an emerging second wave of HIV infection. From grappling with the drug’s effects on their physical and mental health to wrestling with their darkest sexual desires, Rock Bottom delivers a chilling portrait of a community in crisis. With an unflinching eye the film captures their stories over a two-year period, from sex clubs to hospitals to family gatherings. It takes enormous courage to face these demons, and even more to allow the world to watch.
Rock Bottom shows Peter Staley as he attempts to wake the New York gay community and New York City Health officials up from their complacency coma of the past decade. We watch Staley on his Herculean effort on telling the gruesome story of meth addiction to the world at large.
Next is J., 28, HIV-. A singer/songwriter living in New York for the last decade he recently made a splash on the club circuit performing his new single about drugs and sex. He claims that his life really started taking off in August, 2004, when he tried crystal for the first time, got a gold card to the popular New York nightclub, Roxy, and starred in two adult videos for Michael Lucas of Lucas Entertainment.
