August 2006 Archives

Hi guys, I just got back from the 16th annual International AIDS Conference in Toronto and it was amazing! I met cutting-edge doctors, political leaders, and even a few celebrities, but the best part of my trip was participating in MTV’s Staying Alive Film Competition. Staying Alive is an HIV/AIDS campaign that is dedicated to educating youth about HIV and discrimination across the world.

Each of the eight teams was divided into groups of 6. The people: youth delegates from around the world. The mission: rehearse, film, and edit a short film about HIV prevention and education. The catch: We only had 48 hours!

At first, I was thrilled—this is a cool way to spread a good message, but after 12 hours into it, I asked myself, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Pre-Filming

Before the 48 hours had started, it was hectic—at the MTV’s 48 Fest Headquarters, they snapped Polaroids of us and introduced us to our team members. We also had to memorize some speeches, undergo camera training, and take a brief acting lesson led by Richard Gere and his wife Carey Lowell. Towards the end, we were given our team color and name. My color? Yellow. I hate yellow.

I didn’t let my feelings for the color yellow ruin my good energy because the next day was important—we had to start thinking of ideas and talk it all out. But throw in six different personalities from six different walks of life, not to mention each of us thinking the issues in our country were the most important, you see where this is going…

But once we all calmed down and understood our countries’ similarities, especially dealing with HIV and our topic, Vulnerable Populations, we were cool, and a script was born.

Filming

The next day we began filming and its funny because when you watch movies, it looks effortless and easy. It’s not and I learned that real quick—the film has to be done from scratch so there were no actors, no location, no wardrobe and a budget to do it all on. Attitudes were flying and the tensions were high. It’s funny how the instant a camera is turned on you, your instant diva comes out.

But we had to hustle because the tapes were due to the headquarters by midnight and we had not even done the last scene. I started to panic, but luckily we flew through the scene with one take and dropped it off just in time.

Editing

It took us all day to edit the film, which was longer than I expected—you have to be really careful with the tape, make sure you don’t tape over certain things. A little complicated, but lucky for us, they hired professional film editors and the end product was UNBELIEVABLE!

Opening Night

Our film was the first one shown that night and I was NERVOUS and kept thinking that you stick the winning film in the middle of the presentation and you start the program with second best. It never fails.

But I told myself that no matter what; all the participants are winners in our community. With that said, this was STILL a competition and I WANTED to win. I was feeling confident, but when the last film came on, my heart was racing.

And The Winner is…

The singer Mya, from Lady Marmalade fame, came up to the mic to introduce the winner. My eyes were followed the teleprompter as Mya read the winner’s name, she said…. STTTIMMMGA!!!. The winning team jumped up and down and accepted their award and rushed the mic while I clapped politely.

I wanted to cry and pout, I am a little competitive, but then I thought about it, winning a free IPod and cell phone would have been great, but changing the way that people around the world view HIV—now, that’s priceless.

Until next time,

Marvelyn

Wow! It’s only been a few weeks since I started working at POZ and I have been all over the country speaking at different events. I’ve met some great people and seen some interesting places. Where do I begin?

First, I went to the BET-Rap-It-Up Teen Forum that took place at “The Glades”, also known as Belle Glade, FL. There were no hotels there, so we had to stay an hour and a half away in West Palm Beach and commute back and forth. As I was in the car on the way to the event, the city turned into the country. It reminded me of Tennessee as I passed cornfield after cornfield.

BET Rap City’s host, Mad Link served as the forum’s moderator. There were diverse celebrities on the panel such as 102.3 radio personality Frisco from Florida, actor Lamman Rucker from All My Children and Half And Half, hip hop artists Lil Ma and Alashus, and gospel singer Lisa McClenon. There were HIV experts and health care workers too.

Mad Link began the forum by addressing the 200 kids in the crowd. He told them, “You cannot look at anyone and tell that they are HIV positive. They could be sitting next to you.” The crowd went crazy, looking at the person next to them in disbelief.

That’s when I introduced myself and told them I was HIV positive. Complete Silence. I could see the shock on their faces. I worried that they might not listen to what I had to say. I remember my high school days, when speakers would come and talk about issues or topics that I felt I did not relate to—I didn’t want to pay them any attention either. But as I started telling my story, I could see that they were real interested. When I finished, the audience rose to their feet and cheered for me. I felt instant relief, but at first I was saddened how that small town one of the cities with the highest HIV infected rate in the state of Florida and, that the children were unaware of their status. After the program, the mayor gave BET & Rap-It-Up Campaign a key to the city.

A few days later, I was off to D.C. to take part in a program sponsored by Youth AIDS and the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. Wynonna and Ashley Judd, singer Lyfe Jennings, and some other big names from the D.C. area were there discussing how HIV affects young people.

In the beginning of the program, I was just a face in the crowd, blending in with the 1500 other young people there. Then Ashley told the crowd that someone was going to share a personal story. That’s when I walked out of the audience, sat on stage, and shared my story. I received a positive response from the crowd—several of them even wanted my autograph and asked to take pictures with me.

Not only were the students educated about HIV, they were also entertained with a basketball game that took place after the panel. During half time, Lyfe performed his new hit song “S-E-X.” I had a ball watching the Mystics crush the Chicago Sky and relaxing with Ashley Judd courtside when we were not in the owner’s box!

Finally, I was invited by BET, The Kaiser Family Foundation, and Scenarios USA to sit on a committee with writers, producers, and directors for a youth screenwriting contest. We had the challenging job of picking the best script about HIV—they were all so good! We finally decided on a script (it was the one I liked the best) and will be featured on BET in 2007.

I was really honored to be part of something that is going to change people’s perceptions and address stigma. This was definitely the highlight of my week.

Marvelyn

I am hooked on My Space. I absolutely love it! I love My Space so much I have two accounts. Everyone always ask me, "Why do you have two accounts?" I say, “I’m conducting an experiment. My first account is ‘Marvelyn Brown’ and the other one is just ‘Marvelyn’. ‘Marvelyn Brown’ reveals my HIV status and the, ‘Marvelyn’ one does not. I have spent the last two months comparing how many hits one gets versus the other. The results? Not so shocking.

Now while “Marvelyn Brown” does gets love, and she has yet to experience any hateful comments, but “Marvelyn” has way more friends and receives tons of messages every day.

Here’s the next step in my experiment: When “Marvelyn” gets 1500 friends, I am going to send out a bulletin and a write a blog to let them all know that they have just been touch by AIDS. I think that will have a huge impact considering that most of my “friends” are male. Will their responses be different than the typical, "Yo ma, you sexy, get at me?" I never respond to those.

But this guy wrote to “Marvelyn” the other day. It was different; he took the effort to describe himself. Take a look:

Wassup pretty face???? i'll start by saying....hello....nice to meet you...lol......Can u tell me a lil bit more about yaself....? I dont wanna do the back and forth thing soooooooooo ima give u the rundown on me......lol.....i'm 24 years young.....from jersey city, nj....i live on my own with my 2 chillenz....lol....i work fulltime.....and am a full time daddy.....i love my kids to death...i love to have fun....im in music....hiphop and r&b...i make beats ......well trying anyway...i can share some music with you maybe one day .....i studied martial arts for 11 years.....so i can hold my own pretty well...i am a very patient guy.....i'm cool as hell....very humorous (love Martin Lawrence)...and know damn near every episode of his show.....(Martin)....i'm smart...(not no nerd..but ...i'm very intelligent....).....i'm business minded..and all about creating a secure future for me and my family....i'm very loyal and trust worthy......i mean, if there's anything you want to know about me..dont hesitate to ask me.......but whisper back ma.....

pps..i dont normally do this (give all my info out..but u have an aura that makes me feel i can trust telling u all that....lol) hope to hear back from ya...

I didn’t know if he was just copied, cut and pasted his message or really was interested in me, but I had to respond to find out. I wrote, "Am I still pretty with AIDS?" and I referred him to my personal website.

Tick, tock, tick, tock….I did not get a response for days. I figured I scared him off. Then out of nowhere, he wrote.....

Weeeelllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...lol...

....I learned alot about u....first and foremost...i just wanna say...WOW!....and that me taking so long to hit u back is not because i was turned off......i even spoke to my dudes like ....wow...she's so beautiful ..u would never even know......i took my time getting back to you because i wanted to hit u back when i could really really conversate with you......

i read your story and like i said up top..WOW!!!!...It was definitely and eye opener.....what was even crazier was seeing that YOU STILL HAVE SEX....like Wow!!!....do you have sex with more people who have HIV or...do you have sex with people who dont have it??......i take it that you let everyone know...as u did me......wow...how does it feel...? i can understand if you do it like u did me and just forward them to your website...but whut happens when you actually meet people in the streets..and they wanna holla.....? cuz i know they do...u are so pretty.....how do u do it...?...to have to tell someone ......i have HIV.....isnt that scary?......im sorry to even be asking u questions like this..but i have never openly known anyone that had this and just let me know out right......i have never been able to conversate with someone like yaself....and if i did know someone who had "something"...shit....i could tell.....lol...it was very visible.......u r so pretty...that its scary cuz u could easily be a woman i'd make mine mate...provided we clicked and we had chemistry.......so please hit me back with anything u'd like to say to me........wow...i was shocked that day...i really really was...i just want u to know that i dont look down upon you...or at you any different.......i really dont.........ur still a beautiful black queen in my eyes!....write back!

Funny thing is, I don’t know what to say to him. When I figure it out, I’ll drop him a line.

Are you ready for this one? I discovered that HIV has a My Space page and so does AIDS. When I first saw it the picture of the HIV cell, I laughed until I was in tears. In HIV comment box AIDS had said, "We make a dangerous team."

So, I decided to send HIV a little message, tell it about itself. What did I say? That’s between me and HIV, but trust, I felt a whole lot better afterwards.

Until next time,
Da Marvelous 1 (My screen name on My Space)