He was active in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in its early years, serving as chair of the media committee,[1] and was a founding member of Queer Nation.

[2] Blotcher later worked as a publicist for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR)[3] and the Culinary Institute of America,[4] as well as co-founding a public relations firm that specialized in representing progressive groups and individuals.

[6] Blotcher was born to nineteen-year-old Valerie Paul in June 1960, although his birth remained unknown to his biological father, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Arnie Portocarrero.

[10][11][8] In 1989, Blotcher moved to the Lower East Side, taking a one bedroom apartment on the second floor of an 1889 tenement building on Essex Street where he paid $485 per month in rent.

A friend came into the office and told him a group of activists was marching on Wall Street the next day to protest the high price of azidothymidine (AZT), one of the only drugs then available to fight HIV.

[1] Blotcher would become the fourth person to chair the committee, following David Corkery and Bob Rafsky, who shared the role, and Michelangelo Signorile, who passed the responsibility on to him.

"[1] As the chair of the Media Committee, Blotcher donned a suit and tie for demonstrations, and deliberately presented a calm and clearly spoken professional demeanor to the assembled journalists.

[1] He spoke on behalf of ACT UP at numerous demonstrations, including the second anniversary "spring lie-down" at New York City Hall in July 1989, and Stop the Church on December 10, 1989,[13] among others.

[5] In 1989, to protest the obstacles unwed partners of people with AIDS faced gaining entrance to emergency rooms and intensive care units, he and other members of ACT UP went to New York City Hall in couples to demand marriage licenses.

[19] The day after the New York state legislature voted to make same-sex marriage legal in 2011, Blotcher said, "I'm dancing in the streets about what happened last night, but I'm very mindful of what work has not yet been done."

[25] Blotcher also edited Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power by Michelangelo Signorile,[26] Animal Factory by David Kirby,[27] and Impresario of Castro Street: An Intimate Showbiz Memoir by Marc Huestis,[28] among others.