Shawn's POZ Blog

The best part about being sick for a week was writing.  I blogged every day last week!  So, really, if your reading this and wishing me well, you might have to decide whether your care for my well-being as a human trumps your love for my incredibly witty style of writing.



Which is on display in this month's issue of Poz!
 
I wrote a column called "Maybe Baby", about the oft-asked procreation question, specifically whether Gwenn and I are interested. And no, that's not our baby in the photo, but it is our Goddaughter, Evie. She's guest-starred on Decker's Daily many times, most notably in Episode 38 as my would-be assassin, after debuting a few days earlier in Episode 34.

Aside from me, she's logged the most Decker's Daily appearances.  Which is fitting, because when our good friend Lauren was pregnant with her, we spent most of the pregnancy in coffee shops.  When she was born, we were at the hospital, and have seen her explore babyhood and life on this planet for the last 9 months.

As for exploration of other planets, well...

Lauren just had a birthday, and as you've seen before, I have a knack for making cool YouTube cute baby vids.  My first work, When Babies Have Babies, feature my niece, Katelyn.  Then last Christmas, my second niece, Helayna, debuted in the sorta sequel, When Babies Save Christmas.

Inspired by those earlier works, I made this for Lauren, changing a Happy Birthday text to a plug for Lauren's music, which I love.  So, without further ado, here's Interplanetary Travelers, starring Evie and Lauren Hoffman.  Enjoy the ride!

Positively Yours,
Captain Shawn

Sunday I started feeling better, and it wasn't because I woke up feeling like a winner for picking a winner in Caressa Cameron for Miss Virginia, photographed here by the lovely and talented Julius Tolentino.  (Caitlin Uze, also in my pageant poster, finished at 2nd runner-up, respectively.)

I decided that after 8 full days of limiting my outdoors activity to a couple of iced mocha runs, I needed to just live my life.  I wasn't being rogue about it; I wasn't contagious, nor did I feel like being out would make me feel worse.  And the proactive plan worked. 

On Sunday I had band practice and made it through the entire 45-minute set-, and then on Monday I got some Sun at friend's pool and went to pool league where I almost won my match.

You're probably thinking, "Yeah, your health is back on track- great.  But what happened with your other prediction, that wrestling match involving your 2008 Person of the Year, The Miz?" 

Well, The Miz got flattened on Sunday at the wrestling pay per view in five minutes.  But on the USA Network the following night, he beat the hell out of John Cena for about 15 minutes before losing... it was awesome!  I know that the genius of my 2008 Person of the Year pick won't be universally accepted for many years, but the Miz is having a far better year than even I could have imagined.

As for the Weekend of RedempShawn big winner, Miss Virginia 2009 Caressa Cameron, positoids can rejoice- her platform issue is HIV/AIDS Awareness!  Pretty damn cool.  She and her mother have worked for quite a few years for the cause, and I hope to work with Caressa a lot in the next twelve months and beyond in our home state/commonwealth of Virginia.

All in all, I'm just happy to not be sick.  Even if I don't have a cool crown... at least not yet.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

It's been a full week since I got sick.  Have I been to the doctor?  No, but don't worry, this isn't a Perez Hilton situation.  "God, I'm bleeding!  I should call the police!"  I have a viral infection, not bacterial, which means the only thing I'd get at the hospital would be a bill.  (Contacted doc via email, he concurred on my viral suspicions.)

My friends get worried when I go down for the count like this.  But I just got labs done, and all my numbers are great.  T-cells are steady in the high 500's, VL is detectable but under 48 copies.  It's just a bug.  The real tragedy here is that I missed going to Roanoke for Gwenn and I's annual Miss Virginia trip.  We've been there every year since 1999, when I made it there to see Gwenn compete despite really being sick with close to 100 t-cells.   This year a contestant, Chinah Helmandollar, is doing the comedic monologue similar to the one Gwenn did when she competed in 1999.  Gwenn is now officially a pageant legend!

But wait, that's not to say I haven't carved out my own niche in the last decade.  I hosted a pageant last fall, and judged a pageant where two girls were crowned.  If either of them win tonight, I plan on collecting royalties.  At the very least, I'll solicit a discreet donation to Decker's Daily Coffee.  Aside from those contributions to pageantdom, my real mark has been my uncanny ability to predict the top finishers...

Every year, I make a poster that I unveil before preliminary competitions in Roanoke.  Since I wasn't able to be there this week, I emailed it to our pageant buddies.  And now, for the first time, unless I've already done this and forgot, I am unveiling my prediction here!

(The reference on the poster to last year's "misstep" is that neither of my two picks in 2008 made the Top 5.  Probably the most embarrassing moment of my life.)

But this weekend is all about returning to my rightful glory.  Not only are these two ladies going to finish at the top, my 2008 Person of the Year, Mike the Miz, has been getting a lot of heat in the WWE. Tomorrow he is wrestling the company's biggest star, John Cena, at the Bash, a pay-per-view I am not getting because I am so confidant in a dominant Miz victory.

Nothing will help me get over this cough like a little redemption- er, redempshawn.  So go get 'em, tigers. You, too, can watch the Miss Virginia pageant, live and streaming at 9 PM EST.  (The ladies pictured on the poster, by the way, are Caressa Cameron and Caitlin Uze, respectively.) 

As the Miz would say, tune in, because it's going to be AWESOME.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

Tomorrow is National HIV Testing Day.  Don't be an "Unknown"- know your HIV status. TKNO (The Know Now Organization) comes to you and provides discreet HIV testing. Check them out, and follow them on Twitter @TKNO.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

I didn't mean for the title of this blog to be misleading.  Michael Jackson did not have AIDS.  But I didn't want to not blog about what everyone will be talking about today.  Yes, today I am a follower.

I've always been a consumer of pop culture.  This is, by far, the biggest loss of a pop star in my lifetime.  The only reason why I'm not counting John Lennon is because I was only 5 when he was murdered.  In terms of Jackson's art, I wasn't a fan of much of anything that wasn't on Thriller, Jacko's shining moment.  In my eyes, however, one other moment shines much brighter than that album: his stand on compassion for those with AIDS. 

In particular, his public support of Ryan White.

I know, *insert boy joke here*.  But really, when he and Elton John came forward to pour resources into this fight, they understood how important it was to get the public's attention and appeal to peoples' greater sense of good.  By choosing to align themselves with Ryan's own mission to educate and enlighten people on the issues surrounding AIDS, they raised the visibility of the injustice Ryan- and others with HIV- were faced with.

Click to watch the video and hear the song he wrote in tribute to Ryan White.  Yes, I admit, it's cheesy.  But hey, I'm trying to focus on my own greater sense of good, and am thankful that he stepped forward at a very scary time in this country's history, and advocated for the well-being of positoids everywhere.
  
On a different note, I have to say that "Thriller" is the greatest music video of all-time.  And he wasn't kidding when he told the girl in the video that he wasn't like all the other guys, was he? 

Positively Yours,
Shawn

Impassioned response to yesterday's blog about Teen Vogue wasn't limited to humans. Check out what Dab the AIDS Bear had to say about it.

"It is unbearable to think with the number of young people testing HIV positive in the United States that Teen Vogue would refuse to run a condom ad.  Guess ignorance of HIV and AIDS in the United States is now in vogue in print as well as in media?" - Dab the AIDS Bear

(image by John Richard Allan)

Well said, Bear!

Positively Yours,
Shawn

Moving along from fake scandals (previous blog entry) to real ones.  Just in case you don't know, Just In Case, Inc. is a company that provides cool little discreet condom carrying cases.  "Intimacy Compacts for Women" is how they describe them.

Here's what they look like.



Great idea, right?

Well, Teen Vogue magazine doesn't think so.  Or they may like them, but they decided to deny them ad space.  Of course, the magazine is a business, and can do whatever it wants.  But this action speaks to the frustration that is the battle for reality-based sex education/awareness in the United States.

I caught up with Rachael Sudul of Just In Case Inc. to get more pissed off about this.

Q: so Rachael- you have a great product that has encourages healthy decision-making... Tell me what went down with Teen Vogue?

Rachael: We received an email through a separate company trying to sell remnant ad space for Teen Vogue and we thought it was a perfect publication for our product, with the rate of STDs in teens and young adults being 1 in 4.  We had hoped to also spark a conversation.  When we went to take advantage of the ad rate, we were told that the editors at Teen Vogue didn't want us to advertise with them.

That blows.

It is a disheartening, yet predictable decision. Interesting however since one of their articles in the June/July issue is: "Modern Romance From kissing to "sexting," check out what teens consider "hooking up"  today."  Sex is used to sell everything even in Teen Vogue; jeans, makeup, food... so we teach our kids and young adults how to seduce in every aspect yet wave our fingers and yell about being abstinent.

And those editors- like politicians who champion abstinence- conveniently ignore their own sexual histories when they were teens.  What message do you hope your product sends to people?

What our product represents is people taking responsibility for their sexual health, young or old, if you are CHOOSING to be sexually active, and you are not 100% sure of your own status or your partner's, use a condom.
 
When you're not being cockblocked by Teen Vogue, whom do you advertise with?

We have advertised with Shape magazine and have had a good amount of editorials in large publications such as Shape, Self, Life&Style, and even Grey's Anatomy magazine.  Kate Walsh talked about our compacts on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - it's the last few minutes of this interview.

Too cool.  So there is hope.  Do you have a favorite dumb reaction to your product?

The reaction is always to the condom... "oh I don't use condoms!!" As if they are reserved for the more promiscuous of us... if we could just normalize the condom by talking about it we could erase the stigma it has... birth control pills had a stigma as well in the beginning and it has diminished over the years.  We can advertise Viagra and KY Lubricant during prime time on national TV, but not the condom?  Interestingly the STD rates have skyrocketed in seniors with many thanks to that little blue pill since they believe pregnancy is the worst that unprotected sex can bring...

Yeah, sexual health isn't just for the whippersnappers anymore.  Thanks for your time, Rachael, and thanks to you and your mom for creating such a necessary- and cool- product.  Viva la condom!

To learn more about the cases, and get one for yourself, go to justincaseinc.com.  You can also follow Rachael on Twitter, which is where I first heard about this.  Please share this interview with others.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

Have been feeling a bit under the weather since Saturday.  A little wispy cough finally turned into something, one of those nasal drip deals; bad in the morning because all night long your throat gets coated with snot.

Yummy.

The hardest part hasn't been having to stay inside, it's been my withdrawals from enjoying my daily iced mocha.  I thought AIDS was hard, but this is a nightmare.  How much can one kid take, God?  On top of that, I was just starting to get over my first "sex scandal" on Decker's Daily when this photo was posted on June 18...


I think someone with the Pozarazzi took it.  Why would Poz magazine try to bring down Decker's Daily?  I don't know.  Never mind that I'm the only one with the password to upload pictures... or that coffee sponsorships have dried up, and the timing of this blog, cough and sex scandal are coinciding like a perfect storm to make you the reader vulnerable to sponsoring me for a comeback cup of coffee.

Pay no attention to that!

I plan to, one way or another, make it out today to get me an iced mocha.  Then, hopefully, I won't be coughing by the evening when I'm supposed to rock out with Synthetic Division band practice.

Thank goodness for silly blog entries, Monday Night Raw, Kathy Griffin, Jon & Kate (I really thought Jon Stewart was going to be announced as the replacement "Jon" as the big surprise) and the Perez Hilton VS. Will.I.Am slugfest.  They all distracted me enough to allow me to forget about feeling under the weather!

Now, it's off to bed.  Here's to hoping I wake up feeling better than the last two mornings- er, afternoons.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

I'm very excited to be playing another show with my synthpop duo-now-trio, Synthetic Division.  Not only that, it's a benefit for the AIDS Walk Washington DC, which Gwenn and I will be walking in with Team Supersnack in October.

Here's a video I made to promote the July 11 show.

If you're on Facebook, the Event page is here.

The details are as follows:
Synthetic Division w/ Silent Muse
Venue: Outback Lodge in C'ville, VA
Doors at 8 pm, close at Midnight
$10

To see another promo vid featuring a Synthetic Division song, click here.  Any friends who read the blog and are coming to the show, we will be playing a couple of new songs.  I look forward to finishing up some new material and posting it on synthetic-division.com.

Positively Yours,
Shawn

Thank you, Dad. For giving me the athletic genetics that offset hemophilia, thus giving me the ability to crush my opponents.  Here's a pic of my father in the 1970's, doing damage on the bowling lanes.

My dad is a pretty humble guy.   What's funny about inheriting his sporting abilities is that I also inherited my mom's competitive nature.  It really makes me kind of a supernova of sorts, not content with just an 8-ball team championship or a putt putt title.  I blogged about representing everyone living with HIV when I compete but, in my own way, I also honor my parents every time I crush an adversary.

Honestly, I've been very lucky in the parent department.  I love my parents more than I can express here in words.  They've fought for me, taught me how to treat others with respect and never settled for any toolish behavior on my part.  I am who I am today because of all those lessons.

So, Happy Father's Day to all the cool dads out there, including mine.  I love ya, Dad.

Positively Yours,
Shawn