One of my favorite movies is the 1987 cult classic, The Monster Squad. On Monday at the Alamo in Charlottesville, I’ll be seeing it on the big screen for the third time. Squad stars André Gower and Ryan Lambert will be there, too, answering questions about the not...
Shawn’s Gang
That’s The Spirit: A Tribute to Fletch (Depeche Mode) and a Love Letter to Music
I had what I thought was the perfect set. Two days before my last show as Synthetic Division I woke up, put on my vintage Depeche Mode t-shirt and headed to the Infectious Disease Clinic for my bi-annual appointment with my HIV doc. I didn't eat before I went, like...
50. Pedro Zamora Would Have Turned 50-Years Old Today.
Today Pedro Zamora would have turned 50. Last December, I blogged about what would have been Ryan White's 50th birthday. I never really knew that they were the same age until now, partly because it seems like people we lose are forever frozen at the age that they...
50. Ryan White Would Have Turned 50 Years Old Today.
Today would have been Ryan White's 50th birthday. As some of you may know, there are some similarities between his story and my own. However, as time goes by that changes. The biggest difference is no longer in how each of us responded to the earliest days of our...
Once Silent, Now Paying it Backward for Peter Staley’s NEVER SILENT Memoir
Opening up about HIV at age 20 was the best decision I've ever made in my life. After a decade of keeping my status to myself at all cost, what should have been a tough change came quite naturally. All at once, it suddenly felt harder to not talk about HIV. I...
The POZ/Beatles Connection: An Interview With Sean Strub on the Anniversary of John Lennon’s Passing
Tuesday, December 8 marks forty years since John Lennon's murder at the age of 40. In the frantic moments that immediately followed the tragedy, Sean Strub was among the first people on the scene. He was 22 at the time and five years removed from an HIV diagnosis,...
Help On Wheels: A Tribute to Barry Haarde
The hemophilia community suffered a great loss this month when Barry Haarde passed to spirit. I invited his blood brother (that's what us hemophiliacs call each other) and fellow cyclist Vaughn Ripley to write a tribute... and what a tribute it is. One...
Your Cure: An HIV Anthem For Everyone
Your Cure (Company) from MerceTheSeries on Vimeo. Last September I had the privilege of going up to Brooklyn to play a cameo role in Merce, Season 2. I remember the first time I heard about Charles and Tyne's web series, they were fundraising for season 1 and they had...
Happy Blogiversary (20 Years!), Steve Schalchlin!
When I decided to open up about HIV 20 years ago, I went online hoping to find the internet that exists today. My search for HIV websites yielded a handful of results- one of them was Steve Schalchlin's "Living in the Bonus Round". 20 years ago, today, he put up his...
Q&A About “Doing It” with CDC
As many of you know, we are a part of Doing It - CDC's new national HIV testing campaign. There was a lot more that went into creating the campaign than you might think, like finding real people (like us!) who are passionate about testing and want to share their story...