Escape from Charlotte, Staying Alive @ Dragon*Con
August 30, 2007
Last weekend I gave a little speech at a conference called Staying Alive, a yearly gathering of disco-enthusiasts who were too young to fully enjoy it the first time around, on the account that we were crapping ourselves.
Many of the 30-somethings, gathered together via a multitude of online communities, meet each summer to exchange retro-fashion advice, dance to the Bee Gees and ABBA and, ironically, do enough drugs that we end up crapping ourselves. Oprah calls this a full-circle moment.
OK, back to reality. No, Staying Alive is not a 70′s thing, and no, I don’t do drugs outside of my HIV regimen and iced mochas. It’s an HIV/AIDS conference put on by NAPWA, the National Association of People With AIDS. You can determine which concept of the Staying Alive conference sounds like a better time.
Oh, before I get into the conference, I gotta talk about some old schoolin’. The Larry Craig sex scandal. He’s the politician who votes against gay rights, then tries to procure gay sex in airport bathrooms. He’s an easy target, for obvious reasons. Now, I’m not going to bash the guy. He’s an old fella, gotta be in his late 60′s, so I’m sure navigating the internet is a real bitch, one confusing pop-up ad after another, by the time he gets through those he’s probably lost the pop-up ad in his pants.
So who can blame him for seeking thrills in the real world? Remember, this tiger was on the prowl during the actual 70′s. So let’s cut his hijinks a little generational slack here.
Back to the AIDS conference… I enjoyed Staying Alive, and was honored to speak at a luncheon on Saturday. The positoid before me went double over his time, which of course screwed me, so I had to make it snappy, particularly when the moderator included, “Keep it to 10-minutes,” in his introduction of me.
But I’m a pro. I nailed it. Even got to work in one of my favorite lines from My Pet Virus: “Most people were worried about my HIV status, but by the time I got to high school another condition had taken control of my life: R.D.S.,” wait for it… wait for it… “Restless Dick Syndrome.”
(Please don’t blame me if that becomes real. I can see the commercials now, “97% of males ages 12 to 78 are afflicted by this condition.”)
Gwenn and I got out of dodge, but our travel back to home wasn’t as easy as delivering cheap laughs to my positoid brothers and sisters. Our connection in Charlotte was tight, and our plane landed exactly 3-minutes before our flight home to Charlottesville was scheduled to take off. So take off we did, running from Gate D to Gate E, the funny part of this story is that I impressed Gwenn with my athleticism. “I didn’t know you could run so fast!”
My lungs were burning like disco fever, but I didn’t let on, soaking in the machismo.
We made it just in time, the flight attendants shouting, “They’re here, wow that was fast!” We hustled onto the plane, sat down, and I told Gwenn, “We won’t be driving five hours home tonight,” as we exchanged respect knuckles.
Then the pilot came out of the cockpit. Pilots should never come out of the cockpits. He had a cryptic message, the lights went out in Charlottesville. I was about to use up my macho points and offer to land the plane in the dark, but I was too out of breath to suggest such a ridiculous thing.
Soon all 18 passengers were corralled back into the airport, where Gwenn and I started a revolt by requesting that our checked bags be returned to us, since we were going to rent a car and drive home instead of taking the hotel voucher (it was 10 PM, no more flights home or anywhere near home were leaving) and flying to a city an hour away (because all flights the next day to home were oversold) before taking a bus home.
We were nice about it, of course, but the idea captured the imagination of others, and soon a mother and daughter were on board, offering to split the cost of the rental car. Then our numbers grew to 8 when 4 others joined up. So we ended up renting an SUV and a car, and hit the road.
The first song that played when we got on the interstate was Foghat’s “Slow Ride”. Take it easy. I took Foghat’s advice, and kept my speed under control so we wouldn’t lose our SUV friends who were following close behind. By the time we pulled into Charlottesville, the Gods of Music ended the journey with another curious tune for the occasion, “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman.
And now I’m off on the road again, going to Dragon*Con, and absolute geekfest in Atlanta. My friends Bella Morte are playing, Gwenn and I are going to watch them do their thing, interview their fans for BMTV (Bella Morte Television, YouTube it) and help out at the merch booth. Oh, there’s also a Miss Klingon Pageant.
Should have stories to write about when I return!
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Check out Shawn’s new CD featuring the Tori Amos cover, “Raspberry Swirl”, and
original 80′s-inspired New Wave/Electronic music… get with the programs! ALSO AVAILABLE on iTUNES!!!
Fast Times at Rehoboth Beach
August 18, 2007
I went to Rehoboth Beach this week to visit my friend, Michael, and his gaggle of Boston Terriers: Phoebe, Gus (affectionately called “Gas” for obvious reasons) and the new pup, Mirabelle.
I’d like to say the trip to the beach was for relaxing, but I was there to meet with Michael because we are collaborating on a children’s book together. He taught kindergarten for many years, and is an artist. He’s done some incredible pieces featuring his star pup, Mirabelle, who has become a posterchild for his shop, Detail.
“There’s just something about this dog,” Michael told me on a few occasions*, sharing stories of how people have taken to an ad campaign featuring Mira that has brought new customers into his shop. (*I just used the C.C. Deville thing, awesome!)
But I’m a hard nut to crack, I demand more from my pups than just overt cuteness, which she had in spades. If I were going to enter into a professional working relationship with this dog, I’d need to see “it”… did Mirabelle have the it factor that has launched the stars of High School The Musical to world-wide fame?
As I was assessing the dog, watching its every move, I took a stroll from Detail down to main area by the ocean. Cars were pushing in and out of town on the main road, and during a relatively isolated stretch, I heard someone yell out of one of the cars as the passed me, “FAGGOT!”
It’s too bad I didn’t get to see the car, or the person who yelled it, but the voice was definitely that of an 18-23 year old caucasian male. He was probably shirtless, and driving with a shirtless friend who he was trying to impress with his bravado and tan.
I just thought, “Seriously? This would only happen to me at Rehoboth Beach.”
I didn’t turn around to look at the car, because the last time I taunted someone who yelled from a car was the last time I got my ass kicked. (Detailed in My Pet Virus, age 15.)
Now, I’m torn between thinking our nation has become more or less homophobic. A lot of people are throwing around “gay” and “faggot”, somehow the latter word has been accepted into the general lingo, a perfect way to pay homage to the Bush Administration in my eyes. I admit, I use “gay” from time to time.
But I think of “faggot” the same way I think of “nigger”, the difference being that a sane person can scan a room before dropping the latter to see if it’s worth the risk. The prior, most people assume they can tell someone is gay by looking at them. So they feel safe putting it out there, and don’t really have the fear of their own mortality that comes with dropping the n-bomb in public.
I bet the guy in the car figured he had me pegged, and felt pretty safe whizzing by me in the car, not that I cut a particularly intimidating figure.
So I’m suggesting a cure for this: if you’re gay and able-bodied, and you hear the word you should immediately punch the person in the mouth. I say mouth, because it’s important to draw blood. If this became the societal norm, people might think twice about throwing the word around. It’s also important to add a line, “Hey, I’m gay. And I just kicked your ass, breeder.”
Of course, violence isn’t the best option. That guy might lose his shit or something, and hurt you or someone else whom he perceives to be gay and less of a physical threat. (Me.)
But I think some of the closet cases who throw the word around may be inspired by such a macho move. They may see that the gay stereotype they hold so dearly crumble down as the blood trickles from their lip. Perhaps then, they would feel more comfortable to expedite their own personal journey toward self-acceptance?
After lunch, I returned to Detail and hung out with Michael and Mirabelle. She is cute, but she had the nasty habit of waking me up in the morning by trampling my genitals. I was on a fold-out sofa, which was quite comforable. Since Michael went to be well before I did, I used his Showtime On Demand and got hooked on Dexter, a great new show featuring Michael C. Hall, who played David from Six Feet Under. I’d go to sleep watching this dramatic new series, and then wake to some drama of my own…
I could hear the little pup waking up in the next room, the floor creaking as Michael got up… I knew what was coming… wait for it… wait for it… a door opens, a sink runs. The lapping of water from a bowl on the floor, which I assumed to be a Boston Terrier and not Michael… then I’d hear the tempo of the little feet, picking up a head of steam… my first instinct is to always to protect my face and especially my nose, which left my genitals there for the tramplin’.
For all it’s rainbows flags and quaint beach-front charms, Rehoboth, I discovered, can be a very violent place.
Later that night, sitting on a bench outside a restaurant, a lady came up and asked me. “Are you famous?” I saw Michael smiling beside me, he had that grin that said, “Make no mistake: I will out you.”
So I stumbled, and said, “Well, I recently wrote a book that is available in that bookstore on the corner.” (Hint hint, go buy it.)
“Oh, that’s exciting! Would you sign something for me?”
She pulled out a Rehoboth Beach tourist manual, and I signed my name and added, “Author of My Pet Virus”. If Kathy Griffin is on the D-List, I’m somewhere at the bottom of a list that goes through the entire alphabet.
But alas, returning home to Charlottesville, my stomping grounds, would surely fix that. Then to my horror, I picked up the C-Ville Best of Issue: Best Local Author: John Grisham Runner-Up: Rita Dove. I was devastated.
All the jockeying for position with Grisham, and I couldn’t even beat Rita Dove. In my heart, I conceded a momentary victory to Grisham, who never answered my rap-inspired challenge to a public read-off. Had I made runner-up, I could have used that to call him out again.
I folded up the paper, dusted myself off, gave my false indignation a rest and comforted myself by knowing that at least I look like someone who might be famous. For something. Or, at the very least, I look gay. Which I take as extremely flattering comment.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Check out Shawn’s new CD featuring the Tori Amos cover, “Raspberry Swirl”, and
original 80′s-inspired New Wave/Electronic music… get with the programs!
Orko from He-Man discussing the gay thing. It’s near the end of the vid. Enjoy!
The Drunken Social Commentator
August 16, 2007
Last week Gwenn and I went out to dinner, and things were going well until we overheard a presence of a woman entering the Ming Dynasty, one of the best vegetarian-Gwenn-friendly restaurants in town.
“I want a cocktail!”
“I’m sorry, we do not serve cocktails,” the waiter informed her as the clock struck 7:30 PM.
“That’s not true! I was here last night and got one.”
The Lady meant wine. Or beer. Which she quickly ordered when she found out what was on tap.
Luckily, she was in the front of the restaurant, we were in the back. If we played our cards right, there would be no interaction. As Gwenn and I spoke about something else entirely, the lady belted out, “I’m READY!”
She would have been main character in Sex & The City, had the popular series been based in rural Virginia and reality.
Here’s where it gets tricky. We finished our dinner and, figuring she had a few more drinks in her, we rushed to pay our tab by the register that was positioned a few feet away from The Lady.
Of course, we get there and someone immediately walks in the door to pick up a take-out order. Then our waiter is on the phone with someone, whom I imagines lives right around the corner, that wants the menu recited to them. You know where this is going, don’t you?
The Lady stands up and stands beside Gwenn, and stares at her. I’m smiling, because I know Gwenn is doing her best to avoid eye contact with someone who is literally two feet away from her. Gwenn’s body is positioned at a 90-degree angle from The Lady.
It is an awkward situation.
The waiter/host hung up the phone, and Gwenn handed him a credit card. Cue The Lady.
“You’re paying for dinner?”
“Yes, I am.”
The Lady looked at me, with disgust. “You should be paying!”
“Well, I just bought her a car for her one-year wedding anniversary.” (I know, it was lame but it was off-the-cuff.)
Her eyes spun around in her skull a little as she processed the information, then she mumbled, “…you should still be paying.”
Now, if I could do it all over again, I’d have worked AIDS into the conversation somehow. Or something more sinister. Can anybody come up with a better response than I did?
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Check out Shawn’s new CD featuring the Tori Amos cover, “Raspberry Swirl”, and
original 80′s-inspired New Wave/Electronic music… get with the programs!
The Next Book
August 14, 2007
This month I get started on my next book. Finally.
I wrote something last January about starting later that month. Then a month or two later I wrote about starting after the spring semester of speaking/traveling was done. But the problem with starting a book is that you have to have an idea. Well, it wasn’t that I didn’t have an idea, I had a few to be honest. And not bad ideas, either. Things I may pursue in the future. But nothing really took, and the thought of spending anywhere from 6 months to 2 years on any of the ideas I had was crippling. So I postponed the heavy-lifting, opting to craft sweet-sounding synthpop with Synthetic Division instead.
Now it’s time create more art, and the thing that has piqued my interest in writing again is a fictional storyline, based loosely on my “expertise” in dealing with life-threatening illnesses. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, and will have to muzzle myself during the writing process to not share too many ideas, but I think it will be worth it to focus that energy– which is really exciting– on the book.
But that’s not to say the blog won’t be getting love. If it weren’t for writing band bios for my friends, keeping this thing, and the occasional Poz article, I wouldn’t have written anything during the past six months. Plus, I’d forget all the things that go on in my life, because my memory sucks. So I need to write, I need to share a lot of what’s going on, because writing and feeling connected with other people are both very important to me.
Starting anew no longer seems daunting. My Pet Virus has been received so well, and people are continuing to discover the book and share it with friends. But it’s the right time to start the next one, which is being begged to be written much like My Pet Virus was.
And my personal goal will be the same one that freed me to write the last book: just write something I’m proud of.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
(update- as of Summer 2010 Shawn is still working on this book, despite previous claims of finishing it.)
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Advice From A Writer
This is a new section, because I get a lot of emails about how to get published and questions about writing. I don’t have the answers, unfortunately, but sometimes I stumble upon ideas that help me out, and I’d like to share them now as they happen.
For instance, we all have words that we can never spell right. For me, one of them is “occasionally”, which I used in the above blog entry. I always spell the damn thing “ocassion” first. And I just figured out a way to never misspell this word again, and I’m not talking about spellcheck either.
As a kid, I had trouble with “friend” and my aunt said, “the word ends with end.” Genius. I never gave the word a second thought after that. Well, here’s my trick for occasion: “C.C. DeVille of Poison occasionally prepared for live performances by snorting copious and life-threatening amounts of cocaine.”
See? I’ll never misspell that word again, thanks to C.C.’s harrowing drug addiction and decadent lifestyle in the 1980′s and 1990′s.
Check out Shawn’s new CD featuring the Tori Amos cover, “Raspberry Swirl”, and
original 80′s-inspired New Wave/Electronic music… get with the programs!
Vid From CD Release Party
August 9, 2007
Watch me shake my tush! Ignore it when I botch the middle of the song. ;O) Thanks to Michael S. for taping the show!
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Help Me Go, Er, Viral
August 6, 2007
Send this music video out to all of your friends. It’s SFG. (Safe For Grandma.)
Last night’s CD release party was a hell of a good time! Video from the show will be posted in my next blog.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
New CD on the Local News
August 3, 2007
My brain hurts from Synthetic Division, but the new web site is up and the CD is available for online orders over there. (Digital track-by-track downloads coming soon!)
There, that’s my hard sell. Oh, and there was this cool piece that ran on a local news station. You can find out what my band, Star Jones and spaceships have in common by checking out the vid below:
This blog is silly, because my brain is mush. Gwenn must read my blog. I know she does. Her Mom asks her about it… hi, Bev! I love you, you’re the best Mom-in-law a guy could ask for. I swear we are coming up for a visit to Cleveland soon! We’ve been talking about it a lot, if not later this month, definitely in September.
Alright, while I’m doing shout outs, you MySpacers need to add a character from My Pet Virus who just signed up. It’s Misfit, he’s the positoid who befriended me online and sent me a copy of the Crippled Masters. He’s a great guy, and he needs MySpace friends badly. See his profile here, and add him here.
See, Harry Potter never hooks you up with his pals. Never.
Speaking of that little wiz, he entered my life today via an unexpected treat. While out, Gwenn made an impulse purchase in the check out aisle: Harry Potter Blood Pops! Why they haven’t utilized thinbloods in an advertising campaign I do not know.
Hope all are well, I’ll be posting video from tomorrow night’s CD release party soon.
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
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