Bed In For World AIDS Day in Grand Central (Dec 1- 8 AM-11 AM)
November 28, 2006
This Friday, in the Kenneth Cole window at Grand Central Station, Gwenn and I are staging a Bed In For World AIDS Day. We’re doing this to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS, to show that people with HIV can and do have safe, loving and healthy relationships.
AmfAR and Kenneth Cole partnered up to help this get maximum exposure, and Gwenn and I are thrilled that they believe in us and our ability to reach people. Of course, this whole idea harkens back to the John and Yoko bed-ins of the 1960′s, and the following Friday, December 8, will mark the 26-year anniversary of his death. I’ve often wondered how Lennon himself would have joined in the fight against HIV/AIDS and homophobia.
I’ll try to update on here as soon as I have information on what’s going on. Try to look for me, Gwenn and Kenneth Cole on the tube Friday, and if you’re in NYC stop on by the window. If you have Cinemax, tune in for a documentary that Gwenn and I are part of, it’s called Positively Naked and it aires at 7 PM (EST) on Friday, Dec. 1.
If you want to do something for World AIDS Day, send a message to all of your friends and tell them to light a candle, each click raises $1 for HIV/AIDS. Thanks to Bristol-Meyers Squibb and the good folks at the National AIDS Fund for organizing this effort.
Photos of Gwenn and I in our silky pajamas will be forthcoming, and I’ll do my best to update the blog on the road. Oh, and wish us luck! It might get chilly in that window, but it’s more than worth it if it gets someone to think twice about not only HIV/AIDS, but those who are living with it and those yet to be unnecessarily infected as well as affected.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
UPDATE: Bed In moved from Rockefeller because bed wouldn’t fit in Rockefeller window. Choo choo, see you at Grand Central!
The Calm Before the Storm
November 27, 2006
The good news of Thanksgiving has settled in and, like with any other potential tragedy averted, it’s back to life as usual. Which, for me, entails a lot of travel during the taint between Thanksgiving and Christmas, where World AIDS Day falls.
Before I totally leave Thankgiving in the dust, I gotta write that this was a good one. We went with my family to a Japanese steakhouse, because Mom insisted that, given her recent worries, that no one stress over cooking and the ritualistic barbarism that are our cultural holiday traditions.
Then our Japanese-American friend, Riki, did a traditional Thanksgiving at his place, which he invited Gwenn and I to. She’s a vegetarian, and he was very worried about her not eating turkey, even though King Kong Bundy could have lived for half a year off of the sides provided. Riki, in his defense, was just sliding into that zone that my mother wanted to avoid.
My prediction in regard to the mashed potatoes and white wine held true. And all in all, I guess you could say it was A Very Japanese Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown.
Now I’m getting ready to leave home for about 10 days, off to speak with Gwenn at various places about our Very AIDS Love Story. Loading some Morrissey and New Order into my iPod, which I’ll probably fall asleep to on the plane. You see, Gwenn sleeps in cars. I sleep in planes. We make for terrible traveling companions. But I’m glad we don’t travel alone like most of our speaking friends do.
Then, after the whirlwind, we come home and decorate for the holidays, get a tree, and labor over the various Christmas Lists we have going. Just like any other couple.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Thankstaking
November 22, 2006
I am unapologetically taking this Thanksgiving: I’m going to eat three turkeys and consume my own weight in mashed potatoes, and I’ll probably wash it all down with a bottle of white wine because I’m a wuss and I don’t like red.
But most importantly, I’m giving thanks for good fortune. No, I’m not rich because I have a book out that’s been reviewed well. Some friends think I’m rolling in it now, which is laughable since my parents still give me money even though I’m 31. “When you have a family, you’ll take care of them,” Mom tells me, doing her best Sopranos impersonation.
Of course, I already have a family, most of which consists of my friends. The family we choose. I’ve been catching up with a lot of friends whom I haven’t seen much of over the last few months, and one friend in particular whom I’ve become reaquainted with is sleep. I’ve been seeing a lot of him.
Best the best thing of all has been receiving some good medical news. Not about myself, but about my mom. She had a recent c-word scare and everything seems to be OK.
Besides consuming a Federline-load of taters, what more could one ask for?
Positively Yours,
Shawn
image from Toothpaste for Dinner.
Election Night Results & This Week
November 11, 2006
Election night results: The Democrats have taken the House, the Senate, and the President’s starfish!
I’m a little late, but this is hardly a political blog. I just hope the Dems can handle the influx of power. They’ve hit puberty, they’ve been given a driver’s license. They’ve had the sex education class and their parents have given them a roll of condoms. Let’s hope they make curfew and don’t fuck everything up.
This week I met with the National Hemophilia Foundation, and will be working with them to raise awareness about bleeding disorders. Who knows, maybe for the next election I’ll head up a get-out-the-vote initiative for the community called Choose or Bruise. I’d go around after the election and visit thinbloods, and anyone who hasn’t voted gets punched in the arm, the bruise a reminder of the fact that they didn’t exercise their American right and privilege.
I learned a lot about what the NHF is doing, and when Gwenn and I speak at colleges we’ll be spreading the word about Project Red Flag. It’s estimated that over two million women are living with an undiagnosed bleeding order in this country alone.
While on the road, I got some great news about the book: it’s been nominated for an award given by Books For A Better Life, an annual event that raises awareness and funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I’m up for the Suze Orman First Book award, given to a first-time author… I’m one of five finalists chosen from over 450 submissions, so wish me luck! (I find out in late February, but already feel like a winner.)
This week I went to a conference in Annaheim to speak to peer health educators. It’s the first time in over seven years that I spoke alone, and I was more than a bit nervous about how I’d fare. You see, Gwenn is the much better speaker than I. Often times, when I talk myself into a corner, she is there to bail me out. So, going it alone for an hour was a bit daunting.
But I managed to survive. I read from a few sections of the book, talked about Gwenn and I’s relationship, and encouraged students to look out for their generation. In addressing the Just Say No, Wait Until Marriage sex ed that a lot of young people are getting, I mentioned Mr. Haggard’s recent scandal. “I bet she waited until marriage, and was more than a little shocked to find out that her evangelical husband was having meth-fueled sex with a male prostitute.”
In closing I mentioned my generation of thinbloods. Not a lot of guys survived who were born around the time that I was, when the blood-treatment rainbow reshifted it’s ending point from the pot of gold, only to root itself in the thick of the AIDS crisis. When I was flying home from the west coast, I was speaking with the man beside me on the plane as we were touching down (landing in Charlotte, not fooling around).
He asked, “So what do you do?” I did the whole vague “sex education” thing, but disclosed my status because the guy was amiable enough and I’d had a good nap on the flight. “Oh, wow,” he said. “My nephew died from AIDS twenty years ago. He’d gotten a blood transfusion just after he was born.” He went on to tell me that the family told their friends that he died from something else.
Twenty years ago, you just wouldn’t disclose your status to a stranger on a plane, unless you wanted the kind of panic that Samuel L. Jackson encountered in Snakes on a Plane. The guy and I even made a joke about that fact, “Oh my God, we shared an armrest!”
We’ve come a long way and I’m fortunate that I’ve lived to see it.
Positively, Shawn
And My Band Plays On
November 3, 2006
I’ve been doing music as Synthetic Division since 1993. You haven’t heard of my music because I only play out in my hometown, and haven’t made a shameless bid to make it in the music industry. (Am relegating all of my shameless bidding to my book these days.)
Not surprisingly for someone who met Depeche Mode for their dying wish, the music of Synthetic Division is electronic. Nothing but synths. I realized in high school that it was much easier to learn how to program keyboards then it was to get an absent-minded bass player to remember to show up for practices.
I get a lot from writing music, and use it as a meditation of sorts. This year, so much time was spent writing, rewriting, and editing My Pet Virus, that there wasn’t much time or energy left for the old keyboards. A friend of mine took notice, and hooked me up with a guy named Kyle, who sent me some incredible electronic music online, and I put some vocals on it and sent it back. I wonder what musicians one hundred years ago would think of how I use music in my life today.
This past Sunday, we debuted the new, improved Synthetic Division. And it was kind of nice not standing up there alone, even though I consider all of my keyboards and my big neon sign as close and beloved friends. Also, with a bandmate who has an equal love of computers and keyboards, band practice is merely a check of the email away.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
life in photos
I am frightened by ceilings. A terrible phobia to have.
Today's assortment of treats: tea for Gwenn, a mocha for me and a cookie to share.
My buddy Sharanya preparing my mocha with just an extra dash of love.
Hanging on wall in our guest bedroom. Couldn't agree more!
Speaking About Sexual Health
Since 2000, Shawn and Gwenn have been speaking about sexual health together, sharing their personal story and empowering others to be safe. If you are interested in having them speak at your event, fill out the Contact Us form.
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