JC's POZ Blog

I went out on this date yesterday. Actually it was a non-date, an unofficial date, a test date if you will - with this pretty amazing artist that I'm fond of. As I sat across the table from him, my mind blank, my energy low, highly distracted and despondent - I thought to myself "What the fuck is going on with me?" I figured it was part of my bad habit of finding a way to mess up a situation, any situation - give me a fireproof mansion and it'll be burned to the ground in under 10 minutes, that's my accidental motto. It took me two glasses of wine, an entire subway ride home, a conversation with my sister and a hug from my next door neighbor to realize why I was the most uninteresting person on earth last night: blood.

I'll explain: I went to the doctor on Tuesday, a specialist, and he told me that he's gotta have surgery to remove a growth so he can see if I have cancer. He's planning on slicing me like a melon, taking off this bump or whatever, pouring it in acid, putting it under a microscope and discover if I'm rotting on the inside. To be totally honest for a moment - when he told me I nearly cried (how's that gonna be if I'm HIV positive and Cancerous at 27? My sister says that if this turns out to be the case I should write a book) but I didn't cry. The only thing I have more pride in than the honesty in which I feel emotions is the discipline I've cultivated by which I express them. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. So on Wednesday I go to my normal doctor, this old man who I adore, and he tells me not to worry too much and then harasses me about why I don't have a boyfriend. Same old same old. BUT then he proceeds to take an insane amount of blood out of my system for viral load, cd4 count, liver tests the normal stuff, but then tons more for the surgery prep.

And then I go back to work, and go on this date - and I'm all lackluster and can't concentrate and don't know what to say or do. And it's blood! I was just exhausted from the blood-letting. And I was pretty happy to have this realization, cause it means I'm not a totally horrible person to spend time with.

The moral of my story is this: When going out on a hot date, be sure you have enough blood in your system....

Okay, I guess that's it. My valiant effort to not write about how terrified I am of something by telling a round-a-bout, non-conclusive, lame story about something unrelated. It's the just the way I do my business. I'm actually not telling anyone about the surgery - just my roommate who's picking me up from the hospital and my two sisters - and I've sworn them to secrecy. I'm nervous that if the info gets out, people will get worried and talk to me about it and I'll get even more terrified. I figure no one I know reads this blog so I'm safe. But if I'm wrong and you do know me. Well, I suppose, just don't bring it up. Talk to me about something completely unrelated. I need to get my mind off of my worries...It's probably nothing anyway. It's probably nothing.

It's the dawning of a new age in America. Suddenly I'm all red white and blue. Suddenly I say god bless America with no trace of sarcasm in my voice. Suddenly the definitions we had for many things no longer apply.

This week Barack Obama became president. My entire work closed down for two hours on inauguration day and everyone gathered in Joe's Pub, and we clapped, and we cried, as we watch the action unfold on the big screen.

This week I stopped by the Grenadian Consulate and picked up my new passport, an official sign that I am now a citizen of my ancestral homeland of Grenada. Everyone asks me why I'd want to become a citizen of such a dinky country in the west indies, but I think that's like asking a Jew why they'd want to visit Israel - should this be obvious? But of course there are business reason - Grenada is a British Commonwealth and so hopefully this duel citizenship of mine will make it easier for me to move to the UK one day. Which begs the question - why England? I suppose the most simple answer is that I have a longing in me to run away from my life. Why? There's no simple answer to that one.

As these two events come to their fruition, I feel like gazing up at the sky and thanking the world for being just what it is. What an amazing place, where such things are possible as a black president and a boy from Montana being reincarnated as a real life west Indian on the very same day. God is truely good.

As one chapter closes, another opens. As the US is welcomed back into the international community, I am welcomed too. And while I can't quite connect these two events yet, I'm certain that they both mean something - and that this something is the very same thing. Just on the edge of something, just on the edge - oh lord - again, just on the edge.

My friend Sammy K asks me "How will we be able to teach the past what the future is?" My answer: Tell the past that the future is just like it is, only bigger. The future seems so expansive, so full of possibility, it shocks the mind close to paralyzing me when I try to wrap my head around it all.

How will we do all the things we've promised to do? How will we fulfill a destiny that is so large? What if, when we are in midstream, we change our mind? What if fear spills in? Or, worse, a different inspiration than the one that started us on this journey? How will we make it?

Hand in hand - arm in arm. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Who knows where we'll be? But we can make it there if we work together and shirk off our hesitations - and trust that our instincts will take us where we really need to be. There is work to be done - in this country and all countries. An entire world out there. An entire future, just waiting to be discovered.

I feel like I'm on a gigantic precipice, staring down. And for the life of me, I know I'm gonna fall soon. And I'm looking forward to that.

God that sounded so morbid. I've been rocking too much Joseph Campbell recently, so you'll have to forgive me. Backstory: In Power of Myth Joey says this thing, that I'll horribly paraphrase, but basically he discusses (well actually rants, talk-talk-talks us through) this concept of human beings going through different phases of life. It's recognized in all cultures. In some cultures you would change the way you dressed suddenly, or the colors you wore, when you reached a certain age. Changes jobs or roles in society. In some cultures something would happen to you and would litteraly get a new name. It's the symbolic dieing and rebirth each of us goes through. The 21st century rocks for shizzle, but it's made a boogie man of death, and that hella lame.

That last sentence wasn't a paraphrase of Joseph Campbell by the way.

I've always viewed the different times in my life like computer operating systems.

When I was a child, I was JC 1.0: quiet, watchful, mellow. Those years are all in pastels for me. I don't remember a thing from before I was twelve, I swear to god.

Then puberty hit and I was launched head first into JC 2.0: a wild mush of testosterone, angst, lots of good old fashion fun.

Then JC 3.0 came with it's delusions of maturity: big dreams, bigger motivation. Tell JC 3.0 it can't do something? Watch this! Ha! Told you so! It's like magic! Blessed by the gods! JC 3.0 was a good ride. I was operating on JC 3.0 for a long time. For a very long time - maybe too long, but that's how it is. You catch the wave and you ride it. But of course every wave eventually hits the shore. JC 3.0 met a hard end. Burned out I'm afraid.

JC 4.0 seemed like a downgrade in comparison: a nervous isolated young man who can't talk to others and can't control his own emotions sits and stares out the window, terrified of the world. HIV positive, and lonely. Quiet, watchful, not sad, but yes, certainly something melancholy about this software. A year on JC 4.0 and it felt like a dozen.

There are those people that would enter my cave during that year when I was meditating or screaming, or both, and they'd sit with me and meditate or scream too - those people are angels, every one.

JC 4.0 just up and disappeared one day. And JC 5.0 fell into place: A melting pot of all the best programs from previous operating systems before: watchful but fun, reckless but the melancholy tempered it out real nice. HIV positive - yeah, just can’t kick them freakin computer viruses! - But hey, what you gonna do? Do everything. Do it all. Revolution today: who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow. So JC 5.0 can't carry a tune in a bucket - we all have our flaws.

But recently JC 5.0 has been getting weary. The longest operating system I've used yet - 5 years. Not so much in the grand scheme of things. If you've been doing the math, you realized I'm either really old hardware or I upgrade my personality a lot. It's the latter. But after 5 years things get outdated. The world changes. Things happen. And if you don't upgrade your life, you'll become an antique - a museum piece. Something they bring tourists to look at and take pictures. JC 5.0 feels old.

I wrote a letter to myself when I was using operating system 3.0, a sort of rally cry to the future me, which of course I called operating system 5.0. I purposely hid this letter from myself for years. I recently found it and read it out loud to myself. I don't even remember writing the words. The letter ends like this:

"Lastly I just wanted to make a request of you JC 5.0: Whatever it is (you know, whatever is bothering you or making you upset and unsteady this week), just remember, all your life you've tried your best to do what's right. And I know you fucked up once and a while. Oh man did you fuck up. But you tried. And that's what counts in the end. So tonight, for me, just for old times sake, kick off your shoes, smile and sleep soundly brother. Sleep deep. However your death comes, welcome it with both hands raised high in thanks. "

In honor of the former me, I welcome what will come. New wardrobe, new role in life, new problems. Problems? I look forward to the problems. The new operating system will handle it the best way it knows how. As for 5.0? I do not fear the night. When I fall into the black abyss of former-consciousness, I will go through that dark door singing.

I've got this fear in me that New York City is slowly wearing away my buddhist sensibilities. There was a time in my life when I thought it was humility. And it is - humility is a trait to be respected and developed. No one likes an dickhead.

But you know what? Being a thick slice of humble pie is sort of an easy out - and if it's not reflecting reality, I mean, if you're so humble that you shy away from talking about yourself, what are you but a liar? Oh yeah, that's a complicated little thing to try and unravel in your brain.

Monks up in the mountains have it easy. Yeah, I said it. In the mountains you can wake and pray and sweep and meditate and grow flowers and live a life of true and natural humility. But humility only goes so far in the big city. Cause here, attention is the ring round everything.

You can define attention many different ways - attention given to others, attention given to oneself - and I wish I were defining attention in one of those ways, cause as I write them, they sound so freakin noble, and I SO want to be a noble person - but I'm actually talking the ability to make sure oneself gets the appropriate amount of attention FROM others - and that doesn't sound noble at all.

It sounds like pride. But my sister Claudia will tell you (in fact, she'll just love this entry I'm sure of it): There's a difference between shoving yourself down other peoples throats versus simply allowing yourself to be recognized for what you do. There's a difference between "Pride" and "Self Promotion".

It would be a lie to describe myself as anything but an HIV positive, young writer who looks at adversity and grins - who sits down with his demons once a week, just to check in with them - who keeps a level head, in the most dire of situations - and who works his black ass off. Don't you wanna buy me? Yeah, you gotta sell that shit!

So that's how I'm living my life today. Some simple rules to get me through the beginning of December: Attention is the ring round everything; Gossip is the holy light of the universe. And Self Promotion should be everyones gospel.

On that note: you should come to my play. It's gay and black, spiritual and heady, funny and tragic, the actors are handsome and the director is smart. Info below: see you in the spotlight.

Age of Grace by Jesse Cameron Alick

12/10 - 8pm
12/11 - 8pm
12/12 - 8pm
12/13 - 8pm
12/14 - 3pm
12/16 - 8pm
12/18 - 8pm
12/19 - 8pm

78th Street Theater Lab: 236 W. 78th St between Broadway & Amsterdam

Call 212 613 3120 to reserve a seat

Tickets are FREE!

In 1977 Anna and Aaron meet and form a bond so beautiful, even the angels in heaven are filled with envy. In the present, Abe has a mental breakdown and upon returning to the shores of sanity, is filled with mistrust of his religion, his place in history and his own sexuality. Determined to find the loophole that connects the events in the present with the past, Abe goes on a journey to find a lost love, though God himself may stand in the way...Mixing the Old Testament with a splash of reincarnation, THE AGE OF GRACE shows the connection between past and present, while exploring the enduring nature of unconditional love.

When I go back home I walk on water but I've somehow forgotten how to swim. My old friend Jenna and I joked while I was back, about how I habitually use metaphors within metaphors, and I think the previous sentence is a perfect example of this. To put the feeling more plainly - it's jarring. But somehow "jarring" doesn't quite do justice to the experience of visiting the mountains that I grew up in after being gone for, good god, ten years now. New buildings are erected, old friends blown to four directions like dandelion seeds, family dynamics mutate every time you blink, and memories assault you on every corner. How was your Thanksgiving?

I'm being dramatic. My Thanksgiving was actually totally fantastic. I blew into Missoula, Montana without telling anyone except for my transient comrade Sammy-K, and he picked me up from the airport and allowed me to wander around with him on errands, drinking beer, talking philosophy. We went to my little brother Kyle's hip hop concert that night (I know, hip hop in Montana? His group, the InHumans are actually totally mind blowing though), and I spent Thanksgiving being attacked by the throngs of little kids that have sprang from the loins of my sister and father. A few old friends that happened to be in town, stalked me down and took me out a few times, god bless them, as many times as the days we've been apart. It was all pretty basic, except for two notable variances.

The first things felt self indulgent, but it stood out - I went out to dinner with my dear friend Kristina, who has been a surrogate mother for me for all intents and purposes. She's been traveling in India and Nepal for months and was on her way out East for the holiday, so I was very pleased our time up in the mountains overlapped for a night. Over an overpriced dinner over at a restaurant that hangs over the Clark Fork River, I was rambling about my life, things I was writing, people I interested in - when I realize that I really don't have anything to report. I mean, what AM I doing with my life? I could name a dozen things, but all of them seemed very unimportant. My little brother is trying to find a way to get out of Missoula before it kills him, my big sister Maia is working long hours trying to mentally thrive in this shitstorm economy, and Kristina is battling the dilemmas of what it means to be the person she is in this emotional location, at this age, in this strange transitory period of history. What am I doing? God, nothing, I think to myself. Not enough. I'm not doing enough good. And I decide that I have to, even if it pushes me towards crisis. I have to travel like Kristina has, I have to figure out what’s going on with me, like Kristina has. I've got to change things - fuck the consequences. And then I realize I’m getting depressed over something that doesn’t really exist. Am I really gonna leave everything to find something better? I mean, really? I live in Brooklyn – what could be better than that? And what about health insurance? Let’s be practical here. I toss back another glass of wine even though I know the urge to run away (not from the dinner, but rather from my own life as I know it) is still blooming in me.

The second thing was when my father, Papa CC as I call him, took me on a ride to visit my old adopted grandfather Rudy. Rudy has been in my life for as long as I can trace my life - my adopted grandmother Betty passed away about a year ago but Rudy has been doing alright without her considering they were married for over 50 years. But, as was bound to happen, Rudy had a fall a few weeks ago. Shattered his hip. I fall all the time and all I have to show for it is a deep sense of clumsiness, but an old man falls, well man, everything changes. When Papa CC got me in the car, we started driving and of course he asked about my health. I could set my watch to that man - he always asks me about my health, first time he gets me alone, which is always in a car. I told him a nonsense story about an strange conversation I had with my doctor about my vitamin D deficiency ("So what are you trying to tell me doc? I need to get more sun?") and I told him my health was fine. What else do you tell someone - I mean, even ones family? One thing I've learned from HIV is how to read the worry on people’s faces with shocking accuracy. My father worries about me. You can hear it in his voice, and the look of concern that covers his eyes makes me so uncomfortable even I (the self proclaimed Prince of Pain) can't ever seem to have a substantial conversation about the matter. We arrive at Providence Hospital and I'm amazed by how little security they have in that place. Just walked in, up the elevator, and into his room without anyone noticing. Rudy was in good spirits - his mind is sharp, but his eyes, his ears, his bones, that's where the trouble lies. The infrastructure as my sister Claudia puts it. Rudy talks to me about memory after memory that he has of me when I was a child, and I smile, but glancing over at the picture of Betty he has on his hospital dresser a wave of loss hits me. Now wouldn’t be the time to start crying, so I look out the window. Mount Jumbo is out there, about a ten min walk away. I remember when my second (and twelfth) boyfriend Abe took me up there and showed me the valley light up at sunset. It looked like a sea of gold. I miss him too, and another wave hits me. I look back to Rudy and as he talks I'm lost in the world where I used to visit the house on Longstaff every Saturday, where I learned how to catch bees without them stinging you, where I learned how to use tools, shoot a gun, mow a lawn. Again, the sense that I’m missing something from my life moves in me and I and look over to my father, like he's gonna have the answers - but when I see his face I notice that the look in his eyes as he listens to Rudy is the same one when he has when he asks me about my health. I realize that I never want my father standing over me in a hospital bed, like he is Rudy's. I never want to put him through that. Like my dad said the only time I've ever seen him cry - "I always imagined that you would give the eulogy at my funeral, not I yours". And I decide if there's anything a man can do for his father, it's that. Loss? We all have things that we feel like we’re missing. But that comes with the territory of living.

Other than those two things, the vacation was pretty much filled with laughter. My family has a way of making me feel like I belong, and that hasn't changed. My two year old niece thinks that I'm Barack Obama, theres a big tacky wooden owl in my front yard and it scares the living shit out of me and Claudia, and I forgot to remind my little brother that I loved him, and to get the fuck out of Missoula. My family can laugh like no ones business. And debate art, and except each other’s differences, and smoke the demon weed. So yeah, nothings different. And now I'm back in New York - my theater company has started tech for two shows that we're putting up in rep this month and I'm exhausted from spending all day in a theater, same thing tomorrow, same thing everyday. But hey, I ask myself in the cab ride home - where else would you rather be?

Last night I found my mack again. It's been misplaced for quite a while, months if you go by the unkind teasing of my roommate, my next door neighbor or any other member of my harem of straight boys. Heartbreak will do that to you though.

After a rough break up this summer my love life has been pretty lacking. Don't get me wrong - I still get around. I'm totally an active young man. In fact, I'm kind of a mack. See, now I'm just talking a big game though. But you know, you gotta talk a big game. The new age folks can tell you - it's all about manifesting reality through your own belief. Right? Why should being a mack be any different? Right.

But truth be told, being a 27 year old artist that is hopelessly romantic and also hopelessly scared of commitment - well let's just say that the past few months have been dissatisfying and leave it at that. I go through dry periods like this sometimes. It's hard to have random sexual encounters when you're HIV positive and that's just the truth. Straight up. When I was first diagnosed when I was 19, I stayed celibate for a year. I mean, it was a really rough year. And to this day, I swear, I would still be celibate (I'd be a buddhist monk living up in the mountains in Nepal is what I'm guessing) if it weren't for Brian. Brian lived down the block from me in Brooklyn and frankly, he swooped in, rescued me, shook me up and cracked me open. Brought me back to life - and for that reason, even though he and I broke up after a year or so, I will owe him forever. He was the first guy I dated after I learned I was HIV positive - basically everything I learned about not hating myself, I learned from Brian. He rocks.

Although I'm not nearly as crippled now a days, the last few months I've been having emotional flashbacks of my Pre-Brian era though. Okay, not "for some reason" - it's cause after the break up, I started in on the self depreciating abuse and then I just couldn't stop. It gets addictive. Telling yourself you're not really someone who can be "loved" per se; Going out on dates, totally uninterested; Working, writing, working, writing - totally detached. And drinking way too much. And you don't notice you're depressed - that's the thing about depression, everything is just...how it IS. Just like you don't notice you've been being apathetic until you see something that jars you and you think to yourself "I want that. How can I get it?" And then swooping down like a savior, just when you think November can't get any colder, the mack kicks in. And, although I'm certainly not trying to replace Brian (god help me), so many things about the situation reminded me of the past: the boldness, the spark of color in my "totally uninterested" mood being countered and unraveled, the cold weather, the weed, the long long conversation, the sign, the ease of the HIV disclosure. It was all so similar.

And yeah, I suppose this is a rather round about way of bragging about how I got laid last night - but I think it's more than that. Not the guy - I mean, who knows - but rather the situation. How a breakthrough can happen at anytime. Any place. You're on your ass one day and you're pushed up onto your feet the next, without knowing that you were even on your ass. Who can deny that god is good?

Ode to Trent
by jc

who knows
all the wonders of this city?
So I raise my glass of water and advil,
to the movement of people,
to the wisdom of bartenders.

I'm pleased as hell I sat down at that bar that night.
And that my date was lame.
And that you know the quickest way
down a mans pants
is through his obsession with sci fi.
You must hear so many stories like that.
My dad used to tell me - a bartender,
he sees it all.

If this is a virgo flashback - I say so be it.
The first one shattered a self imposed personality disorder
of intense social terror -
and taught me I wasn't poisonous to touch.
How can another Virgo be wrong?

I talk too much
and it takes an eternity
to run my hands through your hair.
As I do, I wonder if you're actually a time traveler.
Returning to destroy what isn't useful anymore.
If so, welcome back.
If not, welcome.
Welcome