December 1 is World AIDS Day. To commemorate the event, singer, songwriter, fashionista, survivor and activist Nathan Townsend is having a CD release party for his debut CD “My December Song” to benefit Philadelphia AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room.
PGN: Where do your musical roots come from?
NT: From my family. Everyone in my family sings and plays an instrument; I play piano. I have an amazing uncle, Steven Lumpkin, who can play every instrument. He’s the person I would call my mentor. I actually just took a picture of him playing his saxophone in the park last month. He’s like 80 years old and he’s still doing it. He plays jazz and everyone else in my family does gospel. I’ve been in the church all my life. Always in the choir and doing solos, [laughs] and the one to call if you needed someone to sing for a funeral or a wedding.
PGN: Do you remember your first time performing in public?
NT: Well, I know it was in church. I always knew I wanted to sing. I did that for many years culminating in this CD that I’m releasing Dec. 1.
PGN: Tell me about the family make-up.
NT: I had four sisters but one recently died from kidney cancer. She was my hero, she was the one who was there for me when I got sick. She’s proof that you don’t always know how the story is written. I’m the one who thought I’d been given a death sentence and yet three years ago she felt a mass in her back, went to get it checked and was told it was cancer. She had her kidney removed in September, died in May, just like that [snaps fingers], leaving three daughters. You just never know.
PGN: Sheesh. Other than music, what traits have you inherited from your mother or father?
NT: So I’ve been a fashion model, designer and writer. My father was very dapper; he wore silk suits and had a variety of stylish hats and ties, so I guess my fondness for haberdashery came from him. We look exactly alike. He was a chef and I grew up in the kitchen with him and my grandmother. I ran a catering business for several years so that came from him too. My mother didn’t know how to cook; my father had to teach her. But my mother is where I got my emotional side. This kind of stuff [holds up a $20 bill that he’s waiting to give to a client in need], she’d give her last dime to a stranger, always loving until it hurts. My father was an alcoholic and a womanizer but she stayed with him until he died from cirrhosis of the liver when I was 17. She taught me about unconditional love, she took seriously her vows and stood through sickness ’til death did they part. She taught me how to love.
PGN: What was a favorite family tradition?
NT: They called my grandmother’s house The Big House and every Sunday she’d be in the kitchen cooking for whoever came over. We’d have the choir there, family, friends, you name it. She did that until she died in her 90s. We’re very family-centric and accepting. I love that about us. One Thanksgiving my younger cousin said, “Mom I have something to tell you … I’m gay.” And she responded, “OK, now pass the greens.” We love unconditionally.
PGN: I think the black community gets a rap for being LGBT intolerant but I think often when it comes to our own, we’re pretty accepting.
NT: You read my mind! For instance, they’ll defend me to the death, but I’ve heard them make comments about other people. I’ve even heard my mother gossip about someone with AIDS … “Yeah, I heard he got that thing … ” [Laughs] And I’m like, “Mom! I got that thing.”
PGN: Where did you grow up?
NT: At 31st and Berks. I went to Olney High and then went to La Salle on a full pre-med scholarship. The summer after my first year was when my father died. I’d been working at the post office while I was in school and they offered me a higher position but it was during school hours. I ended up having to leave school my junior year to work full-time to support the family.
PGN: When did you start doing fashion?
NT: I started out as a model in runway competitions and started designing clothes for me to wear. Then I started giving shows and did the first fashion show for the city, which preceded Philadelphia Dresses the World. I also joined the International Men’s Fashion Association and my clothes were shown worldwide.
PGN: Tell me about when you first came out.
NT: I was 21 when I first went out to clubs but I’ve always been a same-gender-loving person. My boyfriends would stay at my house and it was never really talked about but it was never questioned. I remember one time I spent the night out and when I came home my mother said, “Stanley just called, I told him you were in the bathtub!” That’s how I knew she knew. She was trying to cover for me!
PGN: [Laughs] That’s great.
NT: I know, I was like daaaamn! OK, Mom! I wasn’t in the closet, but I was very guarded about my sexuality. It wasn’t until my diagnosis that I was fully open, that I said the words. In some ways, having the disease has been very liberating. It reminds me that tomorrow is not promised, so whatever mark you’re going to make, make it now.
PGN: Take me through what it was like back then getting the news.
NT: It was 1984 and I was 34 years old. Back then the prognosis wasn’t good; there wasn’t a lot of information or medication. I was asymptomatic for 20 years, then in 2008 it made up for lost time; I got neutropenia and my whole immune system collapsed and I was told to get my affairs in order because there was nothing they could do. I was in the hospital for 40 days through the month of December — hence the name of my book, “My December Song.” Then I moved to New Hope to hide and to die. But guess what? Somehow I survived and thrived and reinvented myself. I realized that all of those superficial things that I was searching for didn’t mean anything. Because I was always searching for something bigger, something better; no matter what I accomplished I wasn’t satisfied. I catered for the mayor, I catered for Arlen Specter, I designed clothes for Randall Cunningham and actor Mario Van Peebles and each time I did something big I felt nothing. It wasn’t until I started affecting other people’s lives did I realize what my true value was.
PGN: And the day you were told you were positive?
NT: I was someone who was always in a relationship and I was in one at the time. I was living in South Philadelphia and as a couple having unprotected sex we thought we’d do the right thing and get tested. I was fully expecting a negative result and they came in and told my partner that he was negative but told me that they needed to talk to me. I was like, “Really? What do you need to talk to me about?” And then they told me I was positive. At that time we were right in the middle of all the hysteria, all the panic and angst. They weren’t even using the term AIDS; it was still referred to as ARC, AIDS-related complex, but I had to find out what it meant for me. I just remember thinking, OK, I came into this building and got a test and a result, but I don’t feel any different than this morning. Why should I act any different? That’s how I coped. What did affect me were the medicines, which caused projectile vomiting and diarrhea and other horrendous side effects … having to crush medicine up at work and sneak it into my orange juice, hiding it like I was some kind of addict. In 1999, I went on disability from the post office and sold my life insurance because I thought I was dying. I saw people who looked healthier than me just disappearing. It was a sad time. The vanity in me said that if I got visibly sick, I’d move away but when I did get really sick, suddenly none of that mattered. All my ego went out the window and all I wanted to do was be around loved ones. I became a new person.
PGN: And you lived in Bucks County at the facility you now manage.
NT: Yes, Bucks Villa. It’s a home for people with HIV/AIDS. They were a life saver. One year after moving in there I gave a speech for World AIDS Day and it changed my life, gave me a whole new career as a motivational speaker. Now I teach ad-hoc classes on human sexuality and embracing who you are at Bucks County Community College. One of the things that concerns me is figuring out what is gay these days, what is our culture, where is our community? We’re more than pomp and circumstance and pageantry, and we need to develop and discover who we are in 2015. We have gay marriage and antidiscrimination laws, but who are we? And how do we help those coming up behind us with their identities as LGBT people? That’s what my work in the future is going to focus on.
PGN: I read that they helped you overcome your fear of asking for help.
NT: Yes, when I was in the hospital I was the HR manager for a big company. After I got out of the hospital, I lost my job and benefits. I started selling my stuff to buy my medicine; I sold my suits, my furniture, my artwork, everything. My mother kept saying, “Go to welfare and get some help.” But that wasn’t me. I went through my 401k, all of it until I ran out and hit rock bottom. Then I realized that that’s what those programs are there for. I never did welfare, but I applied for Social Security benefits and got them without a problem; [laughs] they probably thought I’d only live to cash a couple of checks! And now I manage the place where I moved to die. Being at the Villa for so long helps the new people coming in who have been just diagnosed and have the same fatal mentality that I did. They’re scared and feeling all doom and gloom but can point to me and say, OK, there is hope.
PGN: You mentioned that you were asymptomatic; what were the pros and cons of that?
NT: The pros are that you can blend and hide. The cons are … that you can blend and hide. By hiding your status you’re not being respectful of other people. You’re not necessarily sharing your status and giving back or making a contribution because you’re blending and hiding. It was unspoken that if someone didn’t ask your status, then they were too. There was a denial and a lack of responsibility. Eventually coming to grips with it made me a better person. Sometimes you need a broken you to become a better you. Now I concern myself with everything I do and how it affects people.
PGN: And what do you do now?
NT: I’m a speaker with Merck Pharmaceuticals; they contract me to present their programs. I manage the Villa, I commentate on fashion shows, I do motivational speaking and I have this great CD and show coming up on Dec. 1. It’s all songs about love, coming from the perspective of loving a same-gendered person. By the way, I’m donating every digital download to Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room, so if 1,000 people download the songs, all that money goes to them. If a million people download, it will still go to them.
PGN: I understand that a lot of the songs are about loneliness?
NT: Yes, I’ve had four major lovers in my life and all four have died, the last one about 10 years ago. The last 10 years have been the loneliest in my life. I’d been working so much that I didn’t even realize that it was taking up so much of my life that when I stopped doing so many speaking engagements, meeting with people to drive them to the doctor or like the young man today giving them money for the bus, taking suicide calls, there was nothing left. Age and HIV both also play a big part in that loneliness. I never thought I’d live long, so I never prepared to be old. I’ll be 62 in a few months and I didn’t prepare for this part of my life. I didn’t strive for that white picket fence and a dog because I wasn’t supposed to be here. I believed what they said.
PGN: Then why are you grinning?
NT: Because I met someone! He’s 27 and beautiful [jumps up and does a happy dance]. It happened out of nowhere last summer. You want to hear something sad, though? I apologetically prayed to God for a lover. Most people would just pray, “Dear God, please send me somebody to love.” But even after all these years, I was questioning asking him, for love because it was a man. Still! But he answered my prayers. He was on my Facebook and his birthday is the same as my sister who died, so I sent him a happy birthday message. He got in contact and I thought maybe he was after something, and he said that he was … he was after what I could teach him. He’s also HIV-positive and open about it, which was a fear of mine: that I’d find someone who didn’t want me to be so vocal about my status for fear they’d be guilty by association. But he’s just … gosh, is it hot in here? [Laughs] I’m getting the vapors just talking about him.
PGN: You’re funny. Let’s do some random questions. Someone you miss from childhood?
NT: My grandmother. She was all that. She also taught me how to love and how special I was. It saddens me that every family is not like ours, where everyone is loved and supported. It’s why I try to give back as much as I can. The young man who came by is a former health-department client who is a sex worker and he talks to me because he knows I will listen. When he’s in trouble, locked up or gets an STD, he calls me. I sometimes get tired of it but if I don’t help, who will? I gave him $20; it’s not a fortune but he asked for cash to get to an appointment and I gave him a little more. It’s important to care when it’s not cute, when it’s not pretty. We need to care when things get ugly. That’s what I do: I’m there when it gets ugly.
PGN: What was the most unusual speaking engagement?
NT: I’ll tell you the hardest. When I got started I was in Bucks County and it was for mostly white audiences, people I didn’t know, and I was the darling. Then one day I was asked to speak in Philadelphia and I panicked. I thought, Oh no, I might know somebody there. But then I realized, This is what you do, how dare you insulate yourself like that? They’d asked me to sing too and when I got to the place, the guy who was MC’ing saw that the audience was filled with people from my church. He told me I could skip the speech and just sing but I said no, that it was time to tell my truth. It was the first time people who knew me, who knew me from a “better” life, would hear of my brokenness. I sang “My Soul Has Been Anchored in the Lord,” and people were crying and they all came and hugged me and loved me.
PGN: Motto?
NT: Never confuse your adversity with your identity. Your adversity is only for a season and you are not what you’ve been through or what you are going through.
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