MONDAY, JANUARY 20
The week begins with the national holiday commemorating the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the preacher's son from Atlanta, Georgia, whose rare combination of biblical passion, political eloquence, and self-described "soul force" catapulted him to the forefront of the civil rights movement--and to a Nobel Peace Prize--before a sniper's bullet cut short his life in 1968. Today a plethora of newscasters, civic organizations, and good-hearted private citizens paid tribute to the man who would be King, devoting lip service and airtime to remembering MLK's "dream" and contemplating the degree of its realization in the United States in the 34 years since the dreamer's death. Meanwhile, Last Days turned to a pair of our most eloquent comrades for their insights into the greater significance of King's dream--and the results were typically illuminating. "What bugs me," said Josh, "is that the same media that condemned MLK as a dangerous radical in 1967 are now peddling the image of him as this softy-soft guy of peace and love. America now believes that MLK was the softy and Malcolm was the badass. Malcolm was a badass, but my friend, go to the fucking videotape--MLK was THE badass." Comrade number two offered further condemnation of America's "celebration" of King, albeit in a classically circuitous route. "The success of gangsta rap, whose main audience is white, is proof that King's basic ideas are historical rather than active," said Charles (who, in addition to being an authority on hiphop and Kantian philosophy, is a real live black man). "What white America wants from black America is a steady supply of illiterate niggaz. They will pay top dollar for wild, reckless niggaz, but say 'fuck no' to supporting affirmative action policies." So, while King's dream of the United States lifting itself "from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood" may remain as unfulfilled as his ideal of nonviolence, one reading of his legendary 1963 address--with its fearless vision, brutal eloquence, and intoxicating imagery--confirms the one dream Last Days couldn't live without: Good art lives forever.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21
The week continues with a tale of dreams, disappointment, and deep depression from the roiling sin-pit of Las Vegas. That's where Hot Tipper Mindy had flown with her boyfriend Robert to drink, gamble, and (on a whim) catch the homoerotic animal act of Siegfried & Roy. "We'd gotten tickets to the 11:00 p.m. show," writes Mindy, "so we got appropriately liquored up and cabbed over to the Mirage at 10:30." However, as soon as Mindy and Robert arrived, they were greeted by a professionally made sign informing them that "due to circumstances beyond our control, all of tonight's Siegfried & Roy productions have been cancelled." "We were kind of relieved," said Mindy--until they saw the long lines of "angry international tourists and people with mullets" waiting for refunds at the ticket window. But Mindy's annoyance soon turned to heartbreak as she looked ahead in the long and winding line and saw "a woman in a full bridal gown holding a bouquet, standing next to a man in a tuxedo." To twist the knife, Mindy described how the bride and groom dutifully shuffled forward every now and again as the line inched forward. "I don't know what's sadder," writes Mindy, "that they were going to spend their wedding night seeing Siegfried & Roy, or that they didn't even get to do that." Last Days doesn't know either, but we shall spend the rest of our life trying to decide.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22
Today Last Days finally had the chance to peruse the Rolling Stone article that's got everyone from GLAAD to Newsweek crying "bullshit." In the February 6 issue, Gregory A. Freeman's "Bug Chasers: The Men Who Long to Be HIV+" presents itself as an inside view of the "intricate underground world of 'bug chasing,'" in which gay men who want to be infected with HIV deliberately get fucked by men willing and able to infect them. The problem with the article (aside from Freeman's lasciviously sordid tone, which oozes through the piece in such schoolboy-shocking statements as "HIV-infected semen is treated like liquid gold") is its blatant lack of facts. Central to Freeman's damning diagnosis is a statistic from Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of behavioral health services for San Francisco County, who allegedly told Gregory A. Freeman that "at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men" acquired the virus for erotic purposes. However, Dr. Cabaj has since denounced Freeman's quote as "totally false." "I never said that," the flustered doctor told Newsweek. "When the [Rolling Stone] fact checker called and asked if I said this, I said no. I said no. This is unbelievable." Hilariously, Rolling Stone has staunchly defended both Freeman and their fact checker, but no amount of insistence can explain away the article's other ridiculous failing--namely, its reliance on the testimony of "Carlos," a pseudonymous gay man presented as the prototypical "bug chaser," but who is readily identifiable to any cognizant human being as a grade-A sociopath. (To Carlos, getting HIV is "the most erotic thing I can imagine"; if and when he tests positive, he might switch from "bug chaser" to "gift giver": "If I know that he's negative and I'm fucking him, it sort of gets me off. I'm murdering him in a sense, killing him slowly, and that's sort of... exciting to me.") Among the more impressive denunciations of Rolling Stone's fallacious fiasco came from Salon's Andrew Sullivan, who brilliantly illuminated Freeman's failure to "substantiate a single episode of unsafe sex between someone HIV-negative allegedly seeking infection and someone HIV-positive knowingly passing it on." But the final word on the dubious epidemic of bug-chasing comes from excessively reasonable GLAAD spokesperson Cathy Renna, who told Rolling Stone: "The vast majority of the gay community would be just as surprised and appalled by [intentional HIV infection] as anyone else." Hear, hear.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23
Speaking of the AIDS: Today the Governor's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS issued a statement warning those Washington citizens with suppressed immune systems (HIV/AIDS carriers, transplant patients, pregnant women) not to receive the smallpox vaccine, and to be cautious of those who have been vaccinated.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24
Speaking of freaky diseases: Tonight the Internet suffered a massive, worldwide "denial of service" attack caused by a computer worm designed to exploit Microsoft's SQL software, leaving countless web geeks alone and pornless.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25
"I don't know if the moratorium on public grooming tips has been lifted, but if there was ever a reason to, the incident I just saw is it." So wrote Hot Tipper Tyler, who'd just picked up lunch from the Harvard Market's Mediterranean Express when she spotted a woman in a wheelchair sitting in the QFC dining area and chowing down on what appeared to be a piece of sushi. However, a second glance revealed that the alleged sushi was actually the woman's dentures, which she was aggressively licking and sucking. Last Days shares Tyler's pain, but can't begin to fathom the agony of the woman in the wheelchair sucking her dentures.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26
Nothing happened today (unless you count the Super Bowl and the two-hour E! True Hollywood Story of Doris Day).

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