The World’s Arthur Weinstein, DJ Anita Sarko, Susanne Bartsch — the cameos go on and on.” “What Nelson was doing was entirely unique,” Richards said in 2013. “When you watch the tapes, you’ll search in vain to find another person who’s videotaping these events. With AIDS ravaging the community and changing it forever, his was basically the only personal video testimony of a scene that was rapidly disintegrating.” After having an hernia due to the weight of the VHS camcorder over the years, he switched to lighter 8 mm camcorder. Sullivan began holding the camera at arm’s length and pointing it at himself, and the focus and effect of his art changed. Richards explained: “Nelson developed a style where he would come in and out of the picture himself, to talk to the viewer about what was happening around them. The perspective then became what a person would see going along with Nelson somewhere.” In 1987, Richards helped arrange for RuPaul, Larry Tee and Lahoma van Zandt to move from Atlanta to New York and become Sullivan’s roommates. Richards later credited Sullivan with introducing RuPaul to Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who would create the World of Wonder corporation that guided his career to superstardom. In his 1995 autobiography Lettin' It All Hang Out, RuPaul wrote, “Nelson was our New York liaison, and he introduced us to the city. Every time I walk around New York I think of him all the time. He taught us about the West Village, about Fire Island, and he introduced us to Tennessee Williams movies. He was our gay educator and taught us about our birthright, our cultural inheritance. And he always supported me, no matter what.” In 2021, Larry Tee recalled the trio’s arrival at 5 Ninth Avenue: “Nelson records our van turning the corner, and captured us as we dragged our bleary faces out of the van (we had flipped the van on the interstate on the way up).” Larry Tee remembered, “At times Nelson was like a happy hyperactive life coach, and at other times could hardly drag his broken body up the steps because of his bouts of depression…. Looking back, he seemed more than little haunted, as if he knew he was living on borrowed time.” Death and archival preservation In the summer of 1989, with advice from Richards, Sullivan decided to create his own public access show to