Cultivated For AIDS Victims, Laguna Beach Garden Is Missing Its Keeper

LAGUNA BEACH - The small patch of flowers serves as a reminder. It commemorates lives lost and souls remembered. The ashes of 50 or so are scattered or buried there.
But the freshly turned topsoil and budding sweet alyssum in the modest garden on the Laguna Beach bluff are deceiving: The gardener is missing.
Michel Martenay nurtured this little spot for more than 20 years, tugging weeds and planting perennials on his own time with his own money. He installed stone cherubs and lined the dirt with heart-shaped rocks gathered from the beach below.
Now, the man who cultivated this memorial to those struck down by ailments such as AIDS, which ravaged the city's once-vibrant gay community some two decades ago, is himself battling the disease.
"Every time I cry, because I would like to take care of it again, see my garden," Martenay says, his so-blue eyes brimming, his head in his hands. Instead, he spends most days in an Anaheim hospice. The 25 pills he's supposed to swallow every morning make him sick; he sheds pounds from his hollowed-out frame. Unable to work, he worries about money but tries to stay positive about the future.
He spends his days feeding the songbirds and chasing cats and pigeons from a birdbath in the hospice courtyard. The fuchsia bougainvillea climbing the iron fence is no substitute for his Garden of Peace and Love.
Finding his calling
The native Parisian first visited Laguna Beach more than 25 years ago. He'd broken up with a boyfriend. A neighbor had suggested the pretty city hugged by canyons and waves. He was smitten.
Martenay walked everywhere, through town, along the sand. He stumbled upon a forlorn tangle of weeds, rubbish and beer bottles where he was told the ashes of two strangers were buried.
"This garden, nobody take care," says Martenay in his thick French accent, puffing on the Marlboro Lights he loves. "I feel sorry for them." Thirty-nine trash bags later, he'd found his calling.
"People ask me why I do that. I say, because there is two guys buried there," Martenay says. "I do that with my heart."
A landscaper by trade, Martenay would visit the garden in the mornings and evenings, bringing all kinds and colors of donated and purchased flowers.
For several years he led a Christmas Eve candlelight vigil, honoring the memory of the dead. It drew crowds: "The people was coming crying, laughing, smoking joints." A heartbroken man bought a cherub statue to honor his dead lover. The garden became a touchstone for those who had lost loved ones, particularly to AIDS.
Next door to the former home of the storied gay nightclub the Boom Boom Room, the garden blossomed at the center of Laguna's gay culture.
A treasured spot
Former Laguna Beach Mayor Robert Gentry recalls when AIDS first hit the city in the 1980s: "Everybody was scared to death. People were wearing masks." He was ushered into businesses' back rooms when he discussed the disease.
"Laguna Beach is different today because of HIV," said Gentry, who was mayor from 1982 to 1994. During that time, he lost his partner to AIDS. Laguna "lost dozens and dozens of community leaders and activists and upstanding citizens, and that changed the city."
Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who also lost a longtime partner to AIDS, considers the garden a "sacred spot." He met his late partner on that very block and used to spend weekends in Laguna's historic gay core.
The Garden of Peace and Love, as Martenay dubbed it, "had great significance to many of us who've been through the AIDS epidemic," Rosendahl said. "I would go there and pray literally in my meditative way, and remember people who have passed on.
"I'll never overcome it," he said of his loss, one that's shared by many others. "It will always be in my heart forever -- the pain and suffering we went through as a people."
The city recognized how meaningful the patch of blooms had become to the community, gay and straight. People would stop there to reflect, leave mementos, or scatter or bury the ashes of those they'd lost. The city's HIV committee provided access to a city water line to sustain the garden after the Boom would no longer allow use of its water supply.
"Michel was doing the city a favor," said Jim Spreine, a former Laguna Beach police chief who chaired the committee. "You know he does this because he loves his fellow man."
Martenay became a fixture, always puttering on that seaside bluff, talking to homeless people wandering by or rich couples meandering down the hill. He was a social maven, a tour guide, a devoted groundskeeper.
Eventually, a plaque went up at the garden honoring those afflicted by AIDS. But the gardener says the spot is for everyone, "poor, rich, whatever." With flowers always blooming and constant visitors, Martenay says, those resting there are never alone.
Community effort
About five months ago, Martenay grew weak. The 48-year-old found out he, too, had AIDS. He was in and out of the hospital. Visits to the garden tapered off. He was no longer strong enough to haul flats of flowers down the steep stairs or water vigilantly. He moved to Anaheim, where he could receive nursing care; with no car, he was separated from the plot of land he loved.
Friends stepped in. Jimmy Graesser's home overlooks the Garden of Peace and Love. He knew how much Martenay would worry about his beloved plants, so Graesser started watering when he could. Another neighbor, Joe Nygaard, pitched in, weeding and watering, clearing out dead stalks.
"I've adopted it, it's adopted me," Nygaard said of the spot. Digging in the dirt is "my way of encouraging him not to give up on his life." He treasures the pair of clippers Martenay gave him on a recent trip back; friends bring Martenay to the garden for occasional visits.
Community members organized a cleanup effort over the summer, planting dazzling maroon and gold day lilies, white iceberg roses and red geraniums, all to the back beat of the Beatles and the roaring surf. In clearing the soil, they unearthed plastic bags and canisters of ashes, plus a dirt-caked angel and stuffed bear; the discoveries were tucked carefully back underground.
"Why let his legacy go down the tubes?" asked John Madison, owner of Madison Square & Garden Cafe in Laguna, sweating with effort, as he helped plant the flowers he'd donated.
The community has rallied "to pick up where he left off," longtime Laguna resident Patrick Stanton, 50, said as he cleared out the undergrowth from around a favorite bench. "There's a lot of pain and a lot of tears, also a lot of love and a lot of smiles" in this patch of earth, he said, adding, "It's fitting that it should be beautiful."
A Labor Day fundraiser pays for weekly visits from a professional gardener. Another fundraiser and cleanup day, and beautification measures such as new signs, are planned for the fall.
And yet, for Martenay, the outpouring of help is bittersweet.
"It's very good. I'm very happy," he says wistfully. "But it's too bad -- because it's not me."
Instead, he shuffles between bed and chair and courtyard at the hospice, sleeping often and missing his garden. Sometimes, if he stands outside at night, he can see the fireworks at Disneyland.
On his nightstand sits a single magenta orchid that just lost its exotic bloom. Lately he's planted mums and begonias in the courtyard outside his room. The two-day effort left him worn out the rest of the week. He hopes to return to Laguna Beach, to the garden, while there's still time.
And after that, he has a particular spot in mind: at the foot of one of the garden's little angels, overlooking the sea.
from The Los Angeles Times

Gay Workers Being Treated Better

WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign Foundation recently released the seventh annual Corporate Equality Index, which rates 583 businesses on a scale from 0 to 100 percent on their treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.
The 2009 edition of the CEI reports 259 businesses achieved a perfect score, a one-third increase over last year when the number was 195. The 259 top-rated businesses collectively employ more than 9 million full-time employees.
These workers are protected from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression because of their employers' policies on diversity & inclusion, training, health care, and domestic partnership benefits.
"(The index) shows that corporate America understands that a diverse workforce is critical to remaining successful and competitive," said Joe Solmonese, HRC Foundation president. "In the absence of a federal law that prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, it is up to employers to take the lead and implement policies that ensure all their employees are protected."
Transgender workers have made major gains since the Corporate Equality Index was first published in 2002. That year, just 5 percent of rated businesses provided employment protections based on gender identity or expression. The 2009 Corporate Equality Index reports that figure has increased 12-fold: 66 percent of rated businesses now prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression, a 28 percent increase over last year.
Since 2006, CEI participants have been asked to ensure that at least one of five types of medically necessary treatment was available to transgender employees without exclusion.
For the first time this year, the CEI contains a more detailed review of documentation that businesses submitted in order to determine whether a broader range of medically necessary treatments would be covered by an insurance plan.
In the section entitled "Ending Benefits Discrimination against Transgender Employees," the HRC Foundation found that 49 businesses have taken significant and substantial steps to remove discrimination from at least one of their health insurance plans. These businesses are highlighted in the report's appendices.
from Seacoast

AIDS Prevention Having An Effect

Updated federal estimates of the annual number of new HIV infections in the United States, released yesterday, reveal that although the AIDS epidemic here is worse than previously thought, prevention efforts appear to be having some effect.
Even though the number of Americans living with HIV has risen by more than a quarter-million people since 1998 -- largely because of life-extending antiretroviral drugs -- the number of new cases each year has declined slightly over that period. That suggests that a person's likelihood of transmitting the virus to someone else is substantially lower now than it was a decade ago.
The new, if indirect, evidence that prevention programs are paying off was one of the few encouraging findings in an update on the American AIDS epidemic released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the eve of the 17th International AIDS Conference, in Mexico City.
"Over 95 percent of people living with HIV are not transmitting to someone else in a given year," said David R. Holtgrave, an expert on AIDS prevention at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. "What that says is the transmission rate has been kept very low by prevention efforts."
Those include targeting public health messages to high-risk groups, promoting widespread AIDS testing, and getting quick medical care for newly diagnosed cases, which in most cases lowers the person's infectiousness.
The CDC spends about $750 million a year on AIDS prevention. The main finding of its report is that HIV incidence in 2006 -- the latest year for which data are available -- was 56,300 new cases of infection. That is 40 percent higher than the previous government estimate of 40,000, but statistical back calculation suggests that HIV incidence has been unchanged since about 2000.
The more accurate estimate was possible for two reasons. A new testing method lets researchers detect infections that are less than six months old -- which is more quickly than before. New federal regulations also are pushing states to collect data on new HIV infections and not just new AIDS diagnoses.
By the time AIDS is diagnosed, the infection has severely damaged the immune system, making the person vulnerable to unusual infections and cancers. This generally occurs eight to 11 years after infection, assuming that there is no treatment with antiretroviral drugs, which can prolong life for many more years.
In December, The Washington Post reported that the CDC was revising HIV incidence upward to 50,000 to 60,000 cases a year. Yesterday's announcement -- and the publication of a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- is the first official acknowledgment of the new, higher estimate.
"These data corroborate what many of us suspected -- that the epidemic is worse than we thought. However, it doesn't seem to be getting worse," said Jennifer Kates, director of HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington.
The CDC's portrait of the American AIDS epidemic today shows that gay and bisexual men -- especially those who are young or black -- and their female partners are at particular risk.
In 2006, 73 percent of new HIV infections were in men, 53 percent were acquired through homosexual intercourse, and 45 percent were in African Americans. The incidence rate -- the number of infections per 100,000 people -- was seven times higher in blacks and three times higher in Hispanics than in whites. It was highest in people in their 30s, although people younger than 30 accounted for nearly 34 percent of new infections.
The new study also sketches a 30-year picture of how the epidemic has evolved.
Annual incidence peaked in 1985 at 130,000 infections, dipped to 49,000 in the early 1990s, rose to 58,000 in 1998 and has stabilized at about 56,000 a year.
The number of new of HIV cases acquired through drug injection fell by 80 percent over that period through reduced needle sharing by drug users and, in some places, needle-exchange programs. Infections acquired through homosexual sex, which also peaked in the early 1980s, fell to a low in the early 1990s but have risen steadily since then.
The epidemic in the black community is distinctly different from the national epidemic.
From 2001 to 2005, 38 percent of the new diagnoses in African Americans were in women, and 46 percent of new infections overall were from heterosexual contact. Among whites during the same period, 16 percent of new infections were in women, and 16 percent were from heterosexual transmission.
About half of the CDC's HIV prevention budget targets the black community, said Kevin Fenton, who heads those activities at the agency. He said, however, that the rising HIV incidence in gay men, and in young black gay men especially, is evidence that prevention campaigns have "not reached all those who need it."
Statistics compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation show that 4 percent of the $23 billion the U.S. government is spending this year on all HIV-AIDS activities (including research, medical care and overseas programs) goes toward prevention.
According to a paper published last year in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the CDC's budget for AIDS prevention in 2006 was only 5 percent higher than it was in 1990.
from The Washington Post

Fashion Memo: JC Chasez

Wow, really JC? Really? You're actually going to leave the house in a full-on tuxedo jacket layered over a v-neck summer sweater? And then you'll button up the jacket? Where do you get these ideas, old Bugs Bunny cartoons?
Listen, I know that being in a monochromatically dressed boyband during your formative fashion years makes you an abused child of sorts, but the other four have all made peace with their past and are now looking, well, better than you.
Plus, everyone thinks you're gay - not that there's anything wrong with that - but you'd think a guy who doth protest so much wouldn't dress like the newest conductor of the San Francisco Gay Men's Orchestra. So, get your hand off the wand and hire a stylist, or at least a pyromaniac to torch your closet.
from New York Post

Tap Water Chemicals Not Linked To Penis Defect

NEW YORK - Though some research has linked chemicals in chlorinated tap water to the risk of birth defects, a new study finds no strong evidence that the chemicals contribute to a common birth defect of the penis.
The defect, known as hypospadias, occurs when the urinary outlet develops on the underside of the penis rather than at the tip. Genetics are thought to play a large role in hypospadias risk, but the other potential causes are not fully understood.
Some past studies have suggested that certain chemicals in tap water -- byproducts of the chlorination process used to kill disease-causing pathogens -- may contribute to the risk of birth defects and miscarriage. Other studies, though, have found no such links.
For the current study, researchers led by Tom J. Luben of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used birth records from 934 boys born in Arkansas between 1998 and 2002. Of these children, 320 were born with hypospadias.
Luben's team analyzed monitoring data from local water utilities to estimate the mothers' exposure to two major classes of water-disinfection byproducts during pregnancy.
Overall, the researchers found, women with the greatest exposure to these chemicals were no more likely to give birth to a boy with hypospadias than women with the least exposure.
They report the findings in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
"Our results do not support the hypothesis that continuous or intermittent exposure to tap water disinfection byproduct concentrations within regulatory limits during gestation is associated with giving birth to a son with hypospadias," Luben and colleagues write.
However, the findings are not the final word, either.
The researchers did find that when they accounted for mothers' total exposure to certain chemicals -- through drinking, bathing and showering -- there was some evidence of a link to hypospadias.
There was, however, no clear pattern of hypospadias risk climbing as mothers' exposure to tap water chemicals increased. Such patterns, known as a "dose-response" relationship, are considered to be evidence of cause-and-effect.
The results, according to Luben's team, "could be due to chance."
They call for further studies, with more-precise information on individual women's exposure to tap water chemicals, to help settle the question.
from Reuters

Just One Look...#101

California's Gay Marriages Begin

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - On the front steps of the Beverly Hills Courthouse, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson became the first gay couple to marry in Los Angeles County, and possibly all of California. Tyler and Olson were the leading plaintiffs in the 2004 same sex marriage lawsuit that went before the California Supreme Court, with the majority of justices ruling in their favor on May 15. On late Monday afternoon, it was time to make everything official.
With a crowd that included LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, Beverly Hills Mayor Jimmy Delshad, actress and producer Honey Labrador and her girlfriend, and many friends and family, the courthouse steps were jammed.
A little after five o'clock, Tyler walked out of the courthouse with Olson and their lawyer, Gloria Allred, waving the official marriage license. Tyler said the couple had ordered their white wedding suits a year ago, expecting this day to come.
"It's a great day for tolerance in America," said Michael Libow, a Beverly Hills real estate agent and master of ceremonies, as more friends and family looked on.
During the Jewish wedding, Tyler and Olson were surrounded by every major TV and radio news outlet in Los Angeles, with most of them broadcasting the nuptials live. "This is a time for celebration and rejoicing," said Rabbi Denise Eger, who married the couple.
Anti-gay protesters also attended the event, but they were silent during the ceremony after Beverly Hills police reportedly warned them to be respectful. Volunteers from the gay community stood next to the wedding crashers with rainbow flags.
For many people, it was hard to hold back the tears, and, to be honest, I was one of them. This hasn't happened often. The only other time emotions blind-sided me on the job was when I covered the 2005 civil disobedience arrest of gay rights activist Jake Reitan and his parents, Philip and Randi, at Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado. I'm still not sure why the eyes teared up in Beverly Hills, but watching Tyler and Olson successfully overcome their long struggle, which is the long struggle of every gay man and woman, stirred something in me.
After the ceremony, Janet Singleton, a friend of the married couple, served slices of a four-layered cake named "Eden" to anyone who wanted it...even, she suggested, the protesters.
Just before Robin Tyler ate her cake, she told the crowd, "We stand on the shoulders of thousands of activists who came before us...it's not about us." Tyler added, "We wanted marriage because it's the most special word in the world for someone."
At one point, anti-gay protesters started yelling at Tyler and Olson, calling them an "abomination." Gloria Allred briefly confronted them, waving the supreme court ruling in their faces. More protesters are expected to show up at ceremonies in West Hollywood and Norwalk on Tuesday.
By six o'clock, everything was over, and Tyler no longer introduced Olson to people as her "partner." Whenever she got the chance, she smiled, looked at her longtime companion, and said, "This is my wife." The day, Tyler said, made her feel like Alice in Wonderland.
A lot of music has been running through the head the past couple of days, and after I was driving home from Beverly Hills along Doheny Drive, David Bowie's "Heroes" popped up on the car stereo, with these lyrics adding to a weird buzz fueled by two slices of wedding cake and too much adrenaline:
"I can remember/ Standing/ By the wall/ And the guns/ Shot above our heads/ And we kissed/ As though nothing could fall/ And the shame/ Was on the other side/ Oh we can beat them/ For ever and ever/ Then we can be heroes/ Just for one day..."
On a warm Monday evening in West Hollywood, and a half hour after one of the first same sex weddings in California, it was the perfect gay anthem.
from LA Weekly