Interview with Scott Herman

MP: I know you previously did the AIDS Lifecycle, so then do you want to tell us a little bit about that, and how that went for you?

SH: Wow, the AIDS Lifecycle was a lot of fun. I actually took my team and we drove across the country. I left my home in New Hampshire, and I picked up my team mates in New York. And then we headed down to San Francisco, about 50 hours straight driving.

MP: Wow, ok. How many were on your team?

SH: There was 4 team mates, so 5 of us total. We started off in San Francisco, you never know what to expect, we’ve never been to a charity bicycle ride before. We never… I didn’t know what the process was, we were all kind of there at orientation, walking around, trying to pick out people there, and just try to figure out what’s going on. You know? Then we did the huge photo for the AIDS Lifecycle ribbons, and I actually got [the top left row 3], so I could actually find myself, which is cool. And we got about 3 hours sleep, started to ride and started heading down the coast.

MP: Awesome, and how many days was that?

SH: 7 days, 545 miles.

MP: Wow, awesome. So what influenced you or your team to join AIDS Lifecycle? Was there anyone who influenced you, or did you have an experience – did you have to deal with that situation in your family or with friends?

SH: Well I do a lot within the LGBT community. My season on the Real World, we did the bridge and the cycle event, which was a bicycle ride from Gettysburg, Pensylvania to New York City and I thought it was cool at the time and it was raising money for people who were living with HIV and AIDS so that they could afford treatment. But I said, you know, it’d be cool to do one of these bicycle rides. I never really rode a bike that far, it’d be a cool experience, and I’d be helping a great cause. And then Jim […] over at the LA LGBT center sent me an email asking me if I had any interest in the [AIDS] lifecycle ride, and I said, “ya, it sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds like something I could really get my community involved with, because it involves fitness and everything I do is fitness  related.” So it kind of just went from there and 8 months later I found myself on the West Coast.

MP: So you have a lot of interviews on youtube, and we watched an interview that you did with WickedGayBlog, and you talked about being bullied a lot when you were younger. Maybe you could go into a little more detail about that and how that made you feel and how you got through that.

SH: You know, as a kid, everyone kind of gets picked on. I had an older brother, and him and his friends picked on me religiously everyday at school and on the school bus. And I was very introverted as a kid, I kept to myself, I wouldn’t say much. For me personally, physical abuse never really bothered me, I’d get in fights all the time, because where I grew up in northern Massachusets, it was a boys and girls side parking lot and we would just play fight each other all day. Then I moved to a new town in 2nd grade, I was kind of quiet and kids kind of picked on me and made my life hell. It was the emotional abuse, where I was made fun of, that really hurt me inside, whereas the physical really didn’t bother me. I got picked on and beat up and what-not. And I decided that I wanted to do something about it. When I was a kid my heroes were Superman and Captain America, and they were people who would help others no matter what, and would work for others besides themselves first, no matter what the circumstances were, and even if they didn’t know them. When you’re a kid and you look up and see somebody watching you get picked on and they could do something about it and they don’t do it, that’s a horrible feeling. And I just want to let kids and LGBT youth know that if I can do something, I will. I just hosted a meeting for youth center calls with Natalie. Have you heard of Natalie from the North Shore Gay and Lesbian Alliance?

MP: Sure, ya.

SH: Well, they’re a youth group in […] Massachusets, and they do a lot with LGBT youth and I came in and I hosted a meeting and there were about 25 kids there. And it was interesting for them to have I guess someone like me come in. You know blonde hair, blue eyes, jock, kind of an all-men’s guy, and say, “hey, I fight for LGBT rights. Something I never really thought before, and I take the bullying seriously because I know what it’s like growing up being bullied, and I want these kids to know that they’re not alone, people are actually out there fighting for them, and they’re going to get it from places that they least expected it, especially as they get older. People, smarten up.”