I can imagine. I'm I guess a little younger than you. I don't know many who died, but I was constantly being told when I was first coming out "So and so would be such a good role model for you." "Well, I'd like to meet him." "He died." It's the first thing you seemed to learn. "He died." Over and over and over. I can't imagine what it was like to experience that in real time.
And that Kramer could capture the time so effectively demonstrates what a great artist he was.
He came into a restaurant I was working in, gosh it must have been over 15 years ago and he was very frail. I recognized him and I remember my impulse was to be extra warm towards him because I admired what he had accomplished. They should name a street in NYC after him.
Larry would not want his memory to be sugar-coated. He could spit venom and castigate friends and foes alike with the fire and brimstone of an Old Testament prophet. But then he would turn around and be pure love. I was lucky to be the recipient of both--the love more than the venom, thankfully.
He considered those of us who attended Act-Up meetings and demonstrations his "children," and we loved him like a parent, even though sometimes his seemingly disproportionate fury and rage would enrage us in return.
This clip, from the excellent documentary about Act-Up called "How to Survive a Plague," shows Larry castigating his "children" at a difficult moment when the organization he created was being split into two.