This Positoid’s Life (September-October 2008)
October 22, 2008
I’ve been writin’ a lot of blogs with no pictures and my camera has been screaming for attention. So here’s the last couple of weeks of This Positoid’s Life, with nifty captions. Enjoy!
Saturday, September 27: Bruce gets married! Bruce is a good friend and merch man for Bella Morte (here, from left, Gopal former and founding member, Andy, Bruce, Micah and Tony).
Bruce and Eliza go on their honeymoon, so Gwenn steps in to do merch for Bella Morte’s CD release party the following weekend. Fun fact: Gwenn manages the band, but sleeps with the lead singer of…
Synthetic Division opens the show for the Bella Morte CD release party! (That’s me and Marshall Camden, who is not smoking in this pic.)
I snapped this photo from stage while singing a cover of “Photographic” by Depeche Mode. Get it? That’s two members of Silent Muse, who will be playing with Bella in December.
We have fans, check out the shirt! That’s me and Sharley, who rocks.
Andy Deane resteals his thunder with Bella Morte- CD release party is a success!
A couple days later, it was off to Beaumont, Texas, for the Triangle AIDS Network conference on HIV. I spoke solo last year, but this year Gwenn and I went together to speak about being in a sero-discordant relationship.
What was interesting about this year was that Hurricane Ike had ravaged the community about a month before the conference. There were blue tarps on roofs that were waiting to be fixed, and rain water caused more flooding the night before we flew back home.
And speaking of home, another speaker, Tom Donahue of Who’s Positive, was at the conference, too. He dropped me a line quite a few years ago, just after he tested positive. Well, turns out he’s been living in Charlottesville for a year, and the first time we met in person was in- you got- Texas.
Here he is with a new camera, which he was very excited about. I think he was working for the Pozarazzi of Poz Magazine, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that photos of me don’t sell!
One of the problems brought about by Hurricane Ike as it pertained to the conference was the host hotel- they were closed longer than expected, which meant the conference needed a new home. It also meant that Gwenn and I and the rest of the speakers spent a night or two at a Catholic Retreat Center in the woods. I picked Room 13, just because I thought that was funny, given my love of Friday the 13th movies…. well, the joke was on me when I woke up that morning, and there was no power!
Everyone knows the power goes out before you bite the bullet. Fortunately, the only thing I missed as a result wasn’t a limb to a machete-wielding maniac, it was a shower.
The conference went well, and it was nice to see some new faces this year, and some familiar ones from last year’s conference.
On the way home, I posed with some cardboard cut-outs of the two respective presidential tickets, and I had a revelation…
The “Rebel Without a Cure” has been supporting these guys?
Look at McCain, he’s the only one of the four who was ballsy enough to pose for his cut-off without a big cheesy grin. That’s enough for me, consider the Rebel Without a Cure a full-fledged member of the Team of Mavericks. (I figure that, being a smartass with AIDS, my endorsement probably hurts.)
Then this past weekend, Gwenn and I spoke at the 4th Annual Conference on HIV in Maine, where my ego was stroked by quite a few people who knew me from my column in Poz. One very nice person said she’s been reading it for over ten years now… another stopped me in the hallway and apologized for gushing. I encouraged her to go on, then later she asked when Synthetic Division was going to play in Maine… hey, maybe someday Tom can sell those photos to the Pozarazzi after all?
Oh, and with all the above Gwenn found time to judge the Miss Hill City pageant in Lynchburg, Virginia, while I was at home with Andy of Bella Morte, watching Bernard Hopkins box Kelly Pavlik’s ears. If any sporting event should make cocky democrats, who believe in polling, nervous, it should be the sight of the 43-year old Hopkins dismantling the previously undefeated Kelly Pavlik.
All of this is the perfect tie-in to my column in this month’s Poz magazine. It’s about, what else, pageants. You read read “Life’s Rich Pageant” at poz.com. (For a trip down memory lane, here’s a column I wrote for Poz in 1998, “Kid Gloves”.)
If this blog seems long, well, it may be the last one until the after life. Just found out Erin Weed is coming into town today. I thought I heard her cracking her knuckles on the voicemail message.
Pray for the thinblooded maverick.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
True Blood Work
September 10, 2008
In all of my blustering about politics, I’ve realized that I kind of pulled a Bush recently, when I declared I’d finished writing my 2nd book…
Mission not accomplished on that front. And there will be no time tables for completion, either.
On the plus side, I won’t be blogging about the writing process, because that is boring. I won’t even mention “it” on here until I have a word on whether it’s going to be published. All I can say is that after a summer break from the book, I was very happy to pick it up today and I liked what I read.
Or at least the parts that didn’t, er, suck.
The timing of returning to the bloody book was perfect- today I went to the hospital to get labwork done in anticipation of Thursday’s appointment with Dr. Greg. They drained four small tubes worth of plasma, then I went to a coffee shop to refuel with an iced mocha before reading about vampires.
All in all, a really good day for a thinblood like me.
It’s after 3 a.m., and as the creatures of the night stir outside my home, I am about to add the final point to today’s vampire trifecta: I’m going to watch True Blood on Tivo. It’s the new vampire series by Alan Ball, the creator of Six Feet Under, one of my favorite TV shows… I gotta admit, I’m nervous because the previews looked cheesy. I hope it rocks like American Teen did.
I will report back soon with lab results. And whether or not True Blood tested positive or negative on the Suck-o-meter.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Check out my memoir, My Pet Virus, and click to read a sample. Video of reviews.
Give a listen to "Sign", one of my songs from Synthetic Division‘s Get with the Programs (co-written with Kyle Wiggins):
Get the song here on iTunes! Or watch Synthetic Division discuss Rory Gilmore.
Be sure to visit ShawnandGwenn.com, where you can see clips of our educational work at colleges and universities, as well as media clips from MTV safe sex programming and a Dr. Drew talk show. 2006 video of me and Gwenn, when I was finishing up My Pet Virus.
Haven’t seen a real blog in a day or so? Follow my cellphone micro-blogging at Twitter.com.
New Book “Finished”
June 17, 2008
A few weeks ago I finished my second book, which means that- if it’s ever published- you’ll get to read it sometime in the future. Pretty vague, huh?
Finished, of course, is a relative term. If the publisher picks it up, it will go through editing, which is a process that can take time, but is one that I really don’t mind at all. The feedback is good, and in the end I really want to produce something that connects with the reader. As a writer, I think proof-readers and editors are essential.
As of now, the new book hasn’t even gone to the publisher, who will yay or nay the idea. With My Pet Virus, I’d written a good portion of the text before submitting to a publisher, but with fiction (the next book is a vampire story) you have to write the whole thing first, unless you are Stephen King.
For him, a text message to his publisher is probably enough to get the green light: “Got this idea about a haunted boat…” “GREAT! Let’s do it.”
In closing, I have never worked so hard on something in my life. My Pet Virus was written over the course of four years, with lots of breaks which gave clarity to some of the stories within. This time, I wrote and edited for nines months, non-stop. And I’m really happy with how the story turned out.
Of course, all updates about the journey to publication will be chronicled here. Hopefully that story, like My Pet Virus, has a happy ending.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
My Pet Virus… The Movie?
February 1, 2008
In 2005, I didn’t have a book deal. Or an agent to find me one. The only thing I had were a few files on my computer called “My Pet Virus: The Book” and a dream.
(And HIV.)
Still, I was looking ahead of the book and dreaming of the story on the big screen: and on the Movies Section on the MySpace page I wrote about MPV: The Movie, starring James Van Der Beek, turning in a stirring performance, as Shawn Decker. Well, in the last several months I was approached by an interested party about turning the book into a screenplay, and a talented, funny young writer is working on it right now. Which is pretty rad. (No word from Van Der Beek’s peeps, yet.) It’s only in the beginning stages of what is sure to be a lengthy process, but it’s cool that this is out there, floating around. Whether others feel inspired, or find the story worthy of being birthed into that format, well that is totally out of my control.
And I’m cool with that. Just the other day I got a message from someone who just completed a high school book report on My Pet Virus. The book is out there, floating around. And I love that. So now, with the fantasy that much closer to a reality, I’ve gone back to fantasizing about who would play me in MPV: The Movie, and I’ve come up with someone who is even more worthy than James Van Der Beek: and that is Bruce Willis.
Too old, you say? Nonsense.
One need only to go rent The Kid, starring Mr. Willis himself, to be convinced that he is the man for the job. In The Kid they didn’t put make-up on him, and Bruce didn’t have the boyish qualities that made Martin Short shine as Clifford. (In 1992, Martin Short delighted- and terrified- audiences with his portrayal of the meddlesome 10-year old, Clifford.)
In The Kid, all Bruce Willis did was throw on a baseball cap and act his ass off. By the end of the film, as the credits rolled, I had no doubts that Bruce was indeed a kid. And he’s the only person who can bring life to my life’s story.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
PS… Can you imagine the Hemo2Homo Review of My Pet Virus: The Movie?
My Column in this month’s Poz
October 30, 2007
I posted a blog several months ago about the passing of my first HIV doc, Dr. Lyman Fisher. In this month’s Poz, I wrote a column about him, you can read it below, and check out the new issue HERE.
Poz Magazine, Nov 2007
Medical Leave
by Shawn Decker
Shawn Decker never thought he’d outlive his HIV doc—so he never said goodbye.
A Canadian fella in his late 50s who zipped around the hospital faster than a teenager on Jolt, Dr. Lyman Fisher was a person my mom called “a very important man.” She hoped against hope that he would figure out a way to beat HIV—and I, a recently diagnosed positoid kid in the late 1980s, resented him for doing his job. Which was, ironically, finding a way to keep me around.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Dr. Lyman, a hematologist who became an HIV specialist by default when just about all of his patients tested positive. It was that his monitoring techniques—the lab work, the poking and the prodding—cramped my style. I didn’t need to check my CD4 count to know I was going to die—maybe not tomorrow but definitely sooner than my parents, my friends and the good doctor himself. And since there were no treatments besides AZT monotherapy (which I nixed) back then, the trips to the hospital seemed pointless.
But as years went on, I grew up a little bit. I started to get comfortable with the routine, as well as the thought that I might stick around for a while longer. I stopped being such a dick about going to the appointments, and though I remained publicly mum about my virus, Dr. Lyman kept me in the loop on treatment developments. He shared promising information on pills in the pipeline and sent me postcards from the many conferences he attended in the United States and abroad. He even invited me along, but I was a teenager with no interest in an AIDS event.
Like any other teen, I spoke in code, one that never used the terms “HIV” or “AIDS.” Dr. Lyman understood, and I began to see him as less of a doctor and more of a friend. Especially when he’d treat my mom and me to lunch after the appointments at a diner called, perhaps appropriately, the Skull and Bones, where I’d always order a grilled cheese sandwich. At 20 I went public with my status, and Dr. Lyman was one of the first people I called for advice. Delighted, he sent me my first copies of POZ and directed me to an AIDS service organization in the area, where I met others who were living with HIV.
And then, in 1999, he retired. As a parting gift, he prescribed Marinol to combat my dwindling appetite and weight, and I was able to eat my first grilled cheese in months.
I regained my health and lost touch with Dr. Lyman, who was beginning to struggle with advanced Parkinson’s Disease. In 2004, I invited him to my wedding, but he was unable to attend because of his own health concerns. A few months ago, I got word that Dr. Lyman passed to spirit, and I was unable to attend to his funeral—because I had committed to the NY AIDS Walk: an AIDS event.
I can’t believe I outlived that liveliest of fellas. I somehow made it to adulthood and I will never take that for granted. Now that I’m here, I wish that in Dr. Lyman’s final years I had sent him a couple of postcards from the AIDS conferences I now attend. Or popped in for a visit.
I would even be willing to revisit those stressful, confusing days when his office was the last place I wanted to be, when my attitude was sour and his energy was boundless. I’d love the chance to sit down again at the Skull and Bones with Dr. Lyman Fisher, have a grilled cheese, give him one more hug and tell him that he is indeed a very important man.
3 Years and 30 Days of Write
October 23, 2007
Just about every weekday for the last two months I’ve been writing my next book. It’s a vampire book. Whether it sees the light of day or remains inside of its tomb has yet to be determined.
I think it’s some good stuff, hence all the time I’ve dedicated to writing. I’ve been told it’s unwriterly to write about writing a book, which is why I’ve resisted and it is good advice, because then your energy refocuses from the story to telling people the story and then you it’s all downhill from there because it spoils the fun for everyone.
But that’s all. It’s a vampire book. It’s going to be a fun ride. I have about 30 Days of Write left to finish it, so wish me luck. Then it’s about finding a home for the book and editing. I told a friend recently who inquired, “I’m 50% done with the writing, which means I’m 5% there.”
Today, however, I’m taking the afternoon off. Gwenn is waiting for me, actually. It’s our 3-year wedding anniversary! And I’m 5% blowing it by holding things up with this dumb blog.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
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.)
___________
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!
YouTube Vid, Online Interview & Poz Article
May 28, 2007
It’s Memorial Day. And I’m blogging about myself. Not sure if that’s what my grandfathers fought for in WWII, or the reason why a generation of new soldiers are slogging it out in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that’s how it is going down this year.
When I was a kid I played War with my friends, thinking I could be the next Rambo if I were called to defend my country. Often times, though, someone would have to be the Ruskies or Charlie, and usually I’d be the foreign fighters just so we could get started. I thought, “Well, there’s got to be some reason for the other side to fight, too, right?”
Of course, the military of any sensical country would never have me in any fighting capacity. 1) I have a bleeding disorder 2) I have HIV and 3) I possess handsome features which would prove a distraction to both female and male service people.
Also, I’m lazy.
But maybe that’s because I rocked it out so hard last Saturday night with Synthetic Division? We were opening for our friends, In Tenebris, who were having their CD release party. Don’t believe me? Well here’s a vid that their guitarist/songwriter Jdavyd took:
Or maybe I’m lazy because I did an exhaustive interview promoting my book with Deborah Harper at Psychjourney.com. Don’t believe me? You can listen HERE.
Or maybe it’s the article I wrote for POZ? I poured a lot of heart and soul into that, basically a look back on speaking out about HIV in “celebration” of this month, which marks 20 years since my HIV diagnosis. And, thanks again to modern technologies, you can enjoy it with the simple click of your mouse… CLICK!
See? Today we can all be just a little bit lazy.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
Friday the 13th: The Missing Chapter
April 13, 2007
In writing a book, a lot of things end up in the crap heap, never to be read and usually for good reason.
The following exclusion, however, is an homage to my teen and pre-teen love of slasher flicks and horror movies that didn’t make it into the book, but isn’t half bad. No better time than Friday the 13th to share this ghastly flight of fancy.
The Return of the Living GRID
Return of the Living Dead not only entertained the most morbid corner of my humanity, the movie also inspired my first post-diagnosis inner-dialogue of resurrection. Maybe, just maybe, if AIDS struck me down I too could come back from beyond the grave to extract a little revenge on those who were free to live a life of debauchery. As my teenaged peers dreamt of making sweet love to the Playmate of the Year after a hot date, I fantasized about eating her brains after a brisk chase through an eerie, decrepit cemetery.
Even as a flesh-eating ghoul I wouldn’t be able to take Heff’s Mansion alone. Which lead me to another thought–If I were to come back from the dead, who would listen to my pleas and join my crusade?
When I was diagnosed with HIV people with AIDS were viewed as monsters, not unlike the decaying flesh-eaters of the Dead films. It’s one of the reasons why Rock Hudson was shunned in Hollywood, Liberace’s name was dragged through the mud and I was kicked out of public school. So who better to aide me in my AIDS-revenge fantasy?
And since the impending fantasy sequence takes place in the 1980′s, it’s important for us to come back in an attempt to change how people with AIDS were perceived and… nah, that wouldn’t work.
If I died a virgin there would have to be bloodshed.
Though I wasn’t particularly impressed with his music, Liberace shared my sense of vanity. Hey, I was a preppy teenager and, yes, this is shallow, but I was entering junior high school at the time and my looks were very important to me. If I were in a state of rapid decomposition, Liberace could help me look better than I did when I was alive–a kind of Queer Eye For The Dead Guy. As for Rock Hudson, well, nobody could handle a guy called “Rock.” And since so much was made not only of Hudson’s diagnosis, but his sexual orientation as well, The Enquirer would definitely be on our hit list.
But not before we cleaned up my town first.
We’d initiate our attack on the boys. This would not only eliminate my dating competition, but also endear me to my new friends. By targeting the hunky football players’ dressing room, we’d attract the unsuspecting meatheads with Ace’s enchanting piano music and sparkling sequined outfits. Nakedly lured from their showers to the 50-yard line of the dimly lit football field, they would come closer… closer… closer still…
Bam!
From behind the bleachers Rock and I strike with an onslaught that could only be described as jock and awe. The athletes finished, we’d move on to the band geeks, whom we’d easily destroy without resistance. Left to fight over my affections, the cheerleaders would plead their cases with the visions of carnage I’d masterminded not too far from the frontal lobes of their brains: the savory treats of my loyal, brooding cohorts.
Positively Yours,
Shawn
PS… Bloodlust not satisfied? Check out this compilation of every death scene in Friday The 13th. Enjoy! And Happy Friday the 13th!
Shawn Takes Manhattan: Support him in the NY AIDS Walk
! Ch-ch-ch-ah-ah-ah.
Earth Angel, Bad Review and “How the Author?”
February 5, 2007
In my memoir, My Pet Virus, I wrote a bit about my buddies in Bella Morte and how they played Earth Angel at me and Gwenn’s wedding. Well, they’ve finally added the song to their MySpace profile, so go give it a listen!
Every once in awhile my Google Alert catches a real gem in regards to my book. While I’ve been pretty fortunate with favorable reviews (Kirkus, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly), apparently I couldn’t cut the mustard in the eyes of a young man from the Utah Daily Chronicle. Here’s what presumably young Christopher Wallace (no relation to the Notorious B.I.G.) wrote:
“My Pet Virus is an interesting story told by a mediocre storyteller.”
Everything else in the review is great! I just picked that sentence to share because I found it horrifyingly entertaining. I’ve started picking a scab on my hand as a result, which I’ve named after that kid in Utah.
Another funny posting I came upon was at a site called golivewire.com. Looks like Generation WWW’s post here about everything, and someone posted about my book. Here’s the exchange:
SUBJECT: My Pet Virus
Greeneyedone: Anyone read this book? Is it good?
longlegedbabe: no how the author???
xbeautifultragedy: Author?
hooray_for_rootbeer: I just looked it up and I’m skimming over the summary. It seems kind of cool, but I don’t think I’d ever read it.
Nessaaa: no anything with “pet” and “virus” in the title is no interest to me
X Reptar X: Sounds stupid. Mkii?
Heart 92: What kind of books?
That is an interesting website thread, told by mediocre website thread posters.
Positively,
Shawn
Gwenn's Fashion Blog: A Latte Style
Decker's Daily On Tumblr
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