Friday the 13th and Bad Blood
August 13, 2010
I grew up as a huge fan of horror movies, and the series of Friday the 13th movies were among my favorite. Jason Voorhees and his machete justice inspired me and my friends to purchase a plastic hockey mask and play out the movies every time the calendar reached that sacred date.
The first movie is about his mother, avenging her son’s supposed death at the hands of “distracted” (sex-obsessed) teenagers who were supposed to be watching the young Jason at Camp Crystal Lake. But Jason was really alive, surviving in the woods, likely watching his mother butcher those poor campers. Not sure if he was waiting for his roll of toilet paper to run out or for the calendar to reach April 1st before he jumped out to show his mommy was safe, but either way he waited too long- thus witnessing the last camper and the decapitation of his mother.
That, of course, set off a series of sequels in which young Jason grows up and continues the Voorhees family tradition of avenging a loved one’s death.
So how does Jason’s story relate to AIDS? Was he part of a top secret Reagan Era abstinence-enforcing unit? That sure would explain his penchant for cutting romantic encounters short. And, in writing the above, is there something in the origin of Jason’s story that tells the saga of the hemophilia community’s bloody crossroads with the AIDS epidemic? Parents of the children who were infected with HIV through blood product treatments banded together with the rage of Jason’s mother, learned the wrong-doings and failings of the institutions sworn to protect them and then sought justice and answers.
Perhaps I’m overthinking it?
Either way, there’s a new documentary out on the hemophilia community’s history with HIV and other blood-borne illnesses. It’s called Bad Blood, and it will be available on DVD on World AIDS Day, December 1st. I’ll be posting a reminder as that date nears… in the meantime, if you’re out camping and you hear something rustling around in the woods… well, my best advice is to use a condom, and hope that you are able to finish up before any uninvited guests join the party.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
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Synthetic Division Playing Tonight in Charlottesville
August 10, 2010
Am playing a show tonight at Rapture, for all you locals. Hope to see you there! If you click on the flyer, it goes to the Facebook Event page.
Filmmakers Looking For Young Females With HIV
August 10, 2010
A couple of weeks ago I posted this blog entry about an upcoming MTV Staying Alive film. Seems that they are looking for young female positoids (someone living with HIV) for the project. If you are up for disclosing your status and taking part, check out the previous blog entry.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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8: Bad Proposition, Good Ruling
August 9, 2010
Last week the big news was that Proposition 8 was overturned and ruled unconstitutional. I welcomed the ruling whole-heartedly because I just don’t understand why it’s an issue and why the people are bothered about it care enough to launch the campaigns they do to, ultimately, “defeat” love, or the pursuit of love by others.
Get a life, is my thought, and let others simply live theirs.
Despite the victory, I feel guarded about the good news. Especially if the endgame is getting this to the Supreme Court for a vote. I don’t have any faith in the Court’s ability to rule fairly on this issue. It also upsets me greatly that President Obama is against gay marriage, especially when his own parents wouldn’t have been able to marry in a handful of this country’s states as recently as the 1960′s. It took sweeping federal law to end the insanity and gross injustice that occurs when the moral deficiency of a popular vote reveals the darkest aspirations of the human heart.
In terms of living with HIV, I think back to my earliest experiences of dating… and hoping I could find love and someone who would accept me. And the endgame was always the thought of marriage, the romantic notion that some other human would commit- or at least commit to the thought of giving it their best effort- to you for the rest of their life.
To deny same sex couples this lofty goal is an injustice.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:YouTube, Facebook and Twitter
Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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Tag Team of the Century: Hot Beef Injection
August 5, 2010
One of the best things about Legends of Wrestlemania is that you can create tag teams and then name them. And the name comes up on the screen in the same font that was used on the television shows when I was a kid.
If I’d been booking wrestling matches and calling the shots back in the day the way I’m doing it on this game, then the “Hot Rod” Rowdy Roddy Piper and Brutus Beefcake would have been a tag team. And, stealing a line from John Bender from The Breakfast Club movie, I would have named them none other than the “Hot Beef Injection”.
It’s the simple joys in life, right?
Positively Yours,
Shawn
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD: Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
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Kilt the Sick Days Counter
August 4, 2010
I had a little tally of “sick days” for this year going on the blog in super small font- so small it seems to have disappeared on me. Oh well, if I knowingly off’d it, then all the better, especially since this year has- thankfully- been good to me healthwise.
Last week I had a few downer days, a sore throat likely caused by the extreme summer heat combined with the extreme summer air conditioning. The timing of those blah days was made especially annoying because it prevented me from getting to Stephen’s 10-year memorial service. Poz posted pictures on their Facebook page. If anyone would understand my absence, it would have been Stephen (or all the familiar faces that were there). I felt better the day after the gathering, and have felt great ever since.
I don’t want to ever dwell on the sick days, or even be reminded of them with a number/tally. When they arrive as they have every so often for the last two decades, I usually just chill out… like last week, when I put in a lot of miles on my new xBox, a birthday gift from my friend Andy, the friend who posted that playfully “nasty” rumor about me not having AIDS. (Thanks Andy, for the laugh and the sweet new gaming system!) Instead of focusing on my sore throat, I just focused on my new game, The Legends of Wrestlemania, where “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has enjoyed the extended World Title reign he never got to have back in the day.
I think one of my best qualities, and one that is directly related to my longevity, is that I rest easy and I’m an easy sickboy. And really, I don’t think I could have tallied last week’s blah days as sick days even if the counter were still anchoring this blog, because I was well enough to leave the house at least once a day for an iced mocha. Which is really the mark of whether or not I’m feeling bad bad, or just blah bad.
Bad bad is not feeling up for an iced mocha.
And it’s not a skirt, it’s a quilt kilt. That one is for all you fellow 1980′s wrestling fans.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
PS… in my original post I mistakenly wrote the word “quilt” where “kilt” should have been. It was late, I know the difference, really… though for many years I always wondered why the AIDS Quilt wasn’t plaid. ;O)
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:YouTube, Facebook and Twitter Website: ShawnandGwenn.com
Also check out the lovely Gwenn’s Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like what you’ve read? Then buy me an iced mocha or check out my new CD:
Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now on iTunes!
SHARE THE BLOG. NOT THE VIRUS.
Remembering Stephen Gendin
August 1, 2010
Ten years ago I was getting a few emails from a friend about a special party for a positoid pal who “wasn’t doing too well”. But I couldn’t imagine the Stephen I knew- blue, red, green hair and all- as anything less than vibrant, and at the time, I was wiped out from my own failing health and starting on HIV meds. A trip to NYC just seemed exhausting, I was in no mood to party so I didn’t go…
Six months later, Stephen was dead. And I was in NYC for a funeral. I was heartbroken.
One of the first openly HIV positive people I met, Stephen Gendin offered me a job at his HIV prescription mail order service, prompting a short-lived (uh, 3 weeks I believe) move to NYC that made me realize for the first time in my life that I was operating on very low levels of energy thanks to HIV. It was a tough pill to swallow. One night, as I told my boss and friend that I was packing my bags and heading back to Virginia to focus on my blog and sleeping schedule, he told me there was another way.
He asked if I ever thought about starting on HIV medications.
Stephen’s hope for survival rested in the advent of new medications. He was a longtime activist, the get-in-the-street and get arrested kind, the kind that are embedded in the AIDS community’s history and identity as being responsible letting drug companies and the feds know that people were dying. He’d signed up for drug trials, used his own body to further research, and was always looking for the next miracle drug.
As we sat on the steps of the old Poz office in the West Village that night in 1996 one of us was hopeful, the other scared shitless about all these new medications. In the field of hemophilia treatment, miracle drugs were the reason why I had hep B, C and HIV. The reason why I was tucking tail as the going got tough. I didn’t make a big deal about how I became infected, and looking back I don’t think I could articulate my fears about the HIV medications even as I was showing the first signs that I needed them.
To his credit, Stephen kindly accepted my resignation and refusal to give the pills a try. He was deeply confused why a 21-year old would choose to return to small town Virginia when he could start meds, get some energy, and pursue a new life in the city. But he was a friend, he said his peace and let me go in peace- it was a beautiful moment I’ll never forget, probably the defining moment of our friendship.
Most of my memories of Stephen are at Poz, which he helped found, or at his former company Community Prescription Service- the entire staff comprised of people living with HIV. I recall tooling around together at a few Poz Life Expos (where the picture above was taken) and I’m glad I kept in touch with him after I left NYC, embarrassed by my lack of staying power at the job he’d so kindly presented to me.
In 1999 when I decided to start medications after my failing health left me with no alternative, I let Stephen know, and he never said or implied that he told me so. He just told me how happy he was for me on all fronts, most excited of which was the fact that my new girlfriend, Gwenn, had recently moved in with me.
Looking back, I envied Stephen’s easy style, and was honored by his friendship and how he showed me that HIV- and people living with it- could be cool as hell. I miss ya buddy, a few years was not enough to know you, but I’m glad I got them. You were, and will always be, a huge influence on this little positoid’s life.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
To learn more about Stephen Gendin, check out Poz Magazine’s October 2000 memorial issue of the magazine in Stephen’s honor.
Watch, Friend and Follow me on:
YouTube,
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Website: ShawnandGwenn.com
Also check out
the lovely Gwenn’s
Fashion/Coffee Blog
Like
what you’ve read? Then buy me
an iced mocha or check
out my new CD:
Synthetic Division, A Symptom of Life, which is now
SHARE
THE BLOG. NOT THE VIRUS.
LIFE IN PHOTOS
Face Time fun with my Goddaughter. She was digging our phone chat- even though we were about three feet away from one another.
Making the enemy quit out with @squirrel_munky and @vaineos :)
Closing out the Joe with @gwennbarringer this afternoon.
Caught in full Mocha Mode...
Speaking About Sexual Health
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