In Grateful Recognition of Your Support...

To commemorate my second year of philanthropic fundraising for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and in support of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Advocacy Services throughout the Bay Area (incl. Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.), I am overwhelmed with both pride, and – of course! – gratitude to have the distinct privilege of announcing that the TOTAL $575.00 USD in funds I raised for AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 (as of Sunday, July 17, 2011 @ 5:30PM PST) well surpassed my initial $500.00 USD pledge, in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

All AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 charitable funds raised to-date by Board of Directors & Staff Members of San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated directly back to those benefiting nonprofit organizations. 

Therefore, I am equally privileged and honored to confirm that, in light of my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 fundraising successes, I have exceeded my own professional philanthropic fundraising obligations to Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. : San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiary (Team #8088), as a Member of the organization's Board of Directors.

In an effort to recognize my grateful appreciation for all donations contributed directly to my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 Fundraising Portal: http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf, I have designed, composed and distributed another MailChimp.com HTML email communications campaign: http://eepurl.com/eNIJQ (as summarized below):

Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) expresses immense gratitude in recognition of your valued contributions to AIDS Walk San Francisco, benefiting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

25th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco

A Thousand Times, THANK YOU!

In Grateful Appreciation of Your Contributions
Supporting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

The Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. is now (and always has been) indeed immensely grateful to our Benefactors, for their impenetrably selfless support of our organization's mission, of its meaningful work; and, of course, for their contributions to the long and lasting lives of all the beautiful youth survivors whom we proudly call "members."

May you relish in knowing with some certainty that your recent charitable support will go far in sustaining the planning, administration, promotion, and development of an integrally effective and successful program of HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Youth Advocacy services offered by Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., as means to fulfill the goals of our noble mission: to help HIV/AIDS infected and/or affected youth of the San Francisco Bay Area to live longer, happier, healthier, more productive, and quality-filled lives.

PLEASE NOTE: Incentives will only be distributed to those donors who have provided Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. with an authentic destination shipping address. Trust that your personal contact information will be kept strictly confidential and will never knowingly be shared with any third party. If you would like to decline respectfully any or all of your due incentives, please respond directly to this email with a clear and concise message confirming your polite refusal of specific gifts.

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Ever so rare in life are moments in which we may boast both honor and privilege enough to witness firsthand the direct impact of considerable generosity as exhibited by others' charitable support of one's own personal philanthropic cause. As a representative beneficiary of your significant generosity, I find myself now in a position of such honor, privilege, and even – of course! – responsibility!

Blessed to be able and invited to delight in the pleasures of my immediate professional obligation to respond to your recent gestures in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I savor the challenge of weaving together the gold-fleece thread of my thoughts into a meaningful expression of most sincere thanks to you.

The immensity of gratitude felt in recognition of your charity truly overwhelms me! Thus, on behalf of the very grateful Board of Directors, staff, and "youth member" constituency of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I proudly proclaim tremendous thanks to you, in honor and appreciation of your most generous gestures of good-willed giving to our cause: "Thank you ever so much! A thousand times, THANK YOU!!"

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Regarding the status of the incentives you, as a distinguished donor to my cause, so wholeheartedly deserve, I am obliged to report that thank you notes will be written and distributed as soon as feasibly possible (e.g., within a month's time). Those more substantial incentives that may be due to you, in recognition of charitable contributions of $50.00 USD or more, will be grouped together and shipped to you via first class priority mail, as single incentive packages. I humbly beg you to recognize my plans to group individual incentives into single packages as a necessary, albeit inconvenient, cost-saving measure.

Also, please keep in mind that Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's anthology of queer cultural criticism essays: WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, will not be available for distribution until after its official release date of Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Consequently, depending on the value of your individual contributions to my cause, your incentive package may not be set to arrive to you until well into next year.

Rest assured! I plan to keep all of my generous donors well informed of the shipping status of their incentives, through a timely distribution of regular updates via email. Such updates will also include donor impact reports that detail just exactly how your contributions are serving the administrative programming needs of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

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In closing, I would like to reiterate how honored and privileged I am to be able to delight in the welcomed challenge of communicating both eloquently and expressively the immensity of gratitude I feel in appreciation of your most valued charitable contributions to AIDS Walk SF 2011, supporting Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

Please know with confidence that your donations to my AIDS Walk SF 2011 fundraising efforts will go very, very far in sustaining, promoting, and developing the vital HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Youth Advocacy services that Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. provides to San Francisco's community of HIV/AIDS infected and/or affected youth.

In appreciation of your considerable generosity, I say to you again: "Thank you so very much! A thousand times, THANK YOU!!" Stay safe, sane, and sober, my friend! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste: I bow to the gods within you..

With most sincere gratitude...
Respectfully yours,
Matthew D. Blanchard

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.
matthew@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF

Matthew D. Blanchard

matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA

[20110717T181534PST] 

WHY I WALK? (Part Two) : @AIDSWalkSF

HELP SUPPORT My Week-Long Fundraising Pledge...

http://eepurl.com/eJmaI – PLEASE HELP Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) SURPASS his week-long $500 fundraising pledge in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.!

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011

WHY I WALK? (Part Two)

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HELP SURPASS My $500 Fundraising Pledge!

Donations directly benefit Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

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With a soft, unpretending and polite voice: a voice ripe with care, compassion and empathy, my younger sister described to me the “difficult challenge” she and other of my closest family members faced back in late 2007 – at the dawn of a miracle and at the dusk of my demise! – when they were forced to confront the very real possibility of my overdose-induced, HIV/AIDS-related death.

Once my diseased, decomposing & comatose body was rushed to the hospital, doctors began their valiant efforts to alleviate my pneumonia, to restore function to my failing kidneys, and to combat – in hopes to conquer! – the poly-microbial necrotizing bacterial infection that had already succeeded in turning the once gentle and happy contours of my handsome smile into a putrid mess of blackened corroded flesh.

The initial prognosis of my critically weakened health was so bleak that doctors were compelled – if not forced by a strict code of ethics! – to contact my family. A triage team of medical care providers informed my closest relatives of my terrible condition, urged my loved ones to ready themselves for my impending death, and requested that they thoughtfully considering together exactly how I would have liked the final directives of my life to be executed.

The story my sister told of my family's own insufferable worry in response to the dreadful possibility of my death fell from her thoughts with surprised suspense:

It was incredible! One day, we were being told that it’d be best for us to prepare for the end. A week later, doctors called again to report that you were stabilizing. Days later, you were still critical but were responding to exterior stimuli. After another week, your foggy eyes peeked open into consciousness. Then, soon enough, you were responding to visual stimuli and were taken off life support.

Before we could catch our breath and put away thoughts of your possible death, you were on the phone with us trying so desperately to communicate your excitement, without a mouth, in spats of very happy giggles, grunts, and moaning. What a roller-coaster; you can imagine! It was a miracle – no question! And, that’s a lot to be said coming from a twenty-something military wife who had long-ago lost her faith. But, only God does miracles; right?

In the glowing radiance of my miraculous rebound back to life from death, I can only attest to the life-saving, life-sustaining force and potential of the myriad members of my social-support and care-provider networks who have remained committed to empowering my continued growth and holistic healing beyond the uncertainty of fragile health, forward toward psycho-social and physical wellness, and in the direction of a complete fulfillment of my ideal future self.

Thanks to vital contributions by countless community-based HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Service agencies, such as those throughout the San Francisco Bay Area who will most directly benefit from the fundraising efforts of over 25,000 AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 participants, I have been empowered to make good of these miracles of prolonged life and second chances that have been gifted to me either by God or by science – or both! Who knows?

Without the unrelenting and selfless support of the numerous humble heroes of both my care-provider and social-support networks, I would surely not have been able to sustain my course toward prolonged survival and eventual success in life. This is why I walk!

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Thanks to each of my friends, family members, care providers, and colleagues for your enduring compassion and support! At present, with $450.00 already raised in just under three days, I find myself rejoicing in this unique opportunity I have to witness the direct impact of your generous contributions to my cause.

In grateful recognition of the valued generosity of donors to my cause, each of my supporters who contributes a charitable gift in the amount of or exceeding $25.00 USD, via my Fundraising Portal, shall receive a special note of thanks hand-written on stationery that features a high-quality digital print copy of one of my limited edition hand-crafted rubber block-cut floral prints – in periwinkle and white on brown (as featured above).

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

Likewise, I hereby commit to keeping all of the many generous donors to my cause well informed of their impact, as the Board of Directors and staff of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. strives to thrive for several more years to come, in support of all Bay Area youth infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. Thanks again!! Cheers! Ciao & Namaste...

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In grateful honor of those innumerable heroes who have helped me redeem my right to live, to survive, to strive, and to thrive in hope, while faced with a disabling AIDS diagnosis, I am planning to participate in the 25th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco - July 17, 2011!

As a Member of the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., one of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partners (Team #8088), I am committed to raising a minimum of $500 for my organization, during this week prior to the event.

All charitable funds raised by board members and staff of AIDS Walk Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated in full directly back to those participating nonprofit agencies. So, please consider contributing to my fundraising efforts in support of BAY Positives, via my personal Fundraising Portal:

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

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AIDS Walk San Francisco is organized by and benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, as well as HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care Services throughout the Bay Area.

San Francisco AIDS Foundation works to end the HIV epidemic in the city where it began, and eventually everywhere. Established in 1982, our mission is the radical reduction of new infections in San Francisco because we refuse to accept HIV as inevitable. Through education, advocacy and direct services for prevention and care, we are confronting HIV in communities most vulnerable to the disease.

San Francisco AIDS Foundation is guided by a strategic plan with three ambitious goals aimed at radically reducing new infections in San Francisco by 2015.

GOAL 1: Reduce new HIV infections in San Francisco by 50%
Leveraging scientific research and community knowledge we will devise new approaches and ensure that federal, state and local legislation supports a climate hospitable to effective HIV prevention.

GOAL 2: Ensure all San Franciscans know their current HIV status
We are expanding advocacy and public education about the benefits of testing, determining the feasibility of citywide HIV screening, and optimizing our own and others’ capacity to provide HIV testing.

GOAL 3: Ensure access to proper care for all HIV-positive San Franciscans
As the epidemic evolves, we are evolving our targeted programs to improve the health of people with HIV and AIDS, from housing and medical referrals to group support and services that address mental health and substance use among populations most vulnerable to HIV.

© 2011 San Francisco AIDS Foundation | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
1035 Market Street, Ste 400 | San Francisco, CA 94103
www.sfaf.org | +1.415.487.3000 (main) | feedback@sfaf.org

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.
http://www.baypositives.org
matthew@baypositives.org
+1.415.487.1616 (main)
+1.415.487.1617 (fax)

http://eepurl.com/eJmaI

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

baypositives.org | 701 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 | info@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com
San Francisco, CA USA
[20110713T061237PST]

WHY I WALK? (Part One) : @AIDSWalkSF

Help Support My Week-Long Fundraising Pledge!

http://eepurl.com/eGH7I – Matthew Blanchard (a.k.a. QHereKidSF) has pledged to raise $500 in one week to support Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011

WHY I WALK? (Part One)

Over the course of the last four years, as many of my most intimately supportive friends, family members, professional care providers and colleagues well know, the critical prognoses of my HIV/AIDS-disabled health had left me teetering to and fro, back and forth between the perniciously presumptive promises of death and the disastrous delirium of drug dependency, depression and disfigurement.

More recently, however, the courage of my convictions has kept me devoutly dedicated to a steadfast and surefooted pursuit of positive change, growth and progress in my sero-positive wellness.

Thus, reconstruction, recovery, and rehabilitation have proven to be, for me, the rightfully redemptive remedies I have needed in life, in order to resolve and ultimately reverse the very real-world rotting corrosion of both my smile, my spirit, and my surety and sanctity of self. This is why I walk!

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In grateful honor of those innumerable heroes who have helped me redeem my right to live, to survive, to strive, and to thrive in hope and in faith of self, while faced with a disabling AIDS diagnosis, I have registered to participate in the 25TH Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco – July 17, 2011, organized by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

As a Member of the Board of Directors of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., one of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Community Partner Beneficiaries (Team #8088), I am committed to raising a minimum of $500 for my organization, during this week prior to the commemorative event.

All charitable funds raised by board members and staff of AIDS Walk Beneficiary Organizations will be allocated in full directly back to those participating nonprofit agencies. So, please consider contributing immediately to my fundraising efforts in support of BAY Positives, via my AIDS Walk San Francisco 2011 Fundraising Portal:

http://awsf2011.kintera.org/qherekidsf

With most humbled humanity of spirit and in hope of sustaining the impact of my own small, but significant, HIV/AIDS Youth Prevention & Care Advocacy Nonprofit: Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., I am proud to be able to entice the generosity of your giving spirit.

In recognition of your superiour contributions to my personal fundraising campaign for the 25TH Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco – July 17, 2011, I offer to reciprocate the unmatched generosity of my most valued donor(s) with various significant incentives.

$50.00 - $74.99 Donations – In recognition of all contributions of between $50.00 to $75.00 to my personal fundraising campaign in support of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc., donors will receive an example of my own personal exploration through visual art of the limitless bounds of my new-found beauty. DONATE NOW!

$75.00 - $99.99 Donations – My supporters who contribute donations between $75.00 and $100.00 will be invited to chose to receive as gifts either my literary work or my cinematic work of creative self expression, accompanied by an example of my creative expression of self through visual art. DONATE NOW!

$100.00 Donations & Above – Those of my supporters whose generosity compels them to contribute most substantially to my cause will be awarded in recognition of their charity with a combination of all three gifts depicted below. DONATE NOW!

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Creative Expression as Self-Portraiture

Since waking from death and after staring straight in the face of my ubiquitously brutish and unbecoming ugliness, I have endeavored to reclaim, through external manifestations of creative self-expression, the full-measured immensity of my own innately internal, yet outwardly actualized, "beauty beguiled, BEGODS!" Consequently, my recent corpus of creative works of self-expression, through self-portraiture on stage, on screen, and on paper, is meant to further foment our shared recognition and rejoicing in the serendipitous resplendence of my "beyond-all-odds" auspicious survival, as we struggle together to find solace in the peaceful reflections staring back at us from there, where the ferocious face of trepidation, self-loathing, and contempt very well once could have, should have been!

– Matthew D. Blanchard,
CONSTRUCT (narrator),
IT GETS BETTER? (author)

Creative Expression as Film Performance

STILL AROUND : A Short Film Compilation (2011, USA, 82 mins.)
distributed as an Outcast Films Release
prod. M. Smolowitz & J. Fockele | The HIV Story Project

funded in part by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation  

"STILL AROUND" is a compendium of 15 short films on the theme of HIV. Most of the protagonists are positive, but the ways in which they deal with their status – and associated issues, like coming out to family or getting politically involved – are wildly different. In some of these shorts we're treated to performance pieces – slam poetry and inventive filming that can tease us, as in Daniel Cardone's "CONSTRUCT," in which poetry about physical disfigurement is intensified by shots that hint at (or briefly show) a body ravaged by infection – and a spirit that has moved toward self-knowledge.

– Kilian Melloy, Edge | edgeboston.com


Creative Expression as Literary Narrative
WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS?
feat. "IT GETS BETTER?" : An Essay by Matthew D. Blanchard 

ed. Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (AK Press, Feb 14 2012)

Mattilda has again provided us with a collection of urgent, intimate, powerful essays that upend the horrifying hyper-visible and invisibilizing bandwagon of today's pro-military, marriage-obsessed white gay politics. These essays excavate masculinity, unearthing the complex and pervasive structures that police and construct it and exposing the beautiful resilience of its self-avowed refusers and failures. These pieces ... [provide] complex and badly needed ways to imagine and reimagine faggotry.

– Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

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POSITIVE OUTLOOK : A COMING OF AGE!

Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

Together for 20+ years, BAY Positives' Peer Education & Advocacy Team has served SF Bay Area youth infected and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. Today, we aspire to sustain & grow our vision through dynamic inter-agency collaborations, engaging & accessible prevention interventions, and strength-based youth empowerment & mentoring.

Over the past 20+ years, the invaluable, lifesaving work of Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. has been supported in great part by significant public & private sector grants, including awards direct from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), and numerous health-promoting business corporations, as well as by the indubitably reliable gift-giving and grant-making of countless SF Bay Area Charitable Fund-Raising Organizations.

The Board of Directors of BAY Positives is now (and always has been) indeed immensely grateful to our Benefactors, for their impenetrably selfless support of our organization's mission, of its meaningful work; and, of course, for our contributions to the long and lasting lives of all the beautiful youth survivors whom we proudly call "members."

FANATIC FOLLOWERS!
Social Media Sharing

    
http://eepurl.com/eGH7I

Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. gladly encourages social media interaction with (and amongst) our constituents. Our Board of Directors actively engages in Web2.0 Communications, in an effort to promote and disseminate positive HIV/AIDS Prevention & Care messages, particularly amongst youth.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Matthew D. Blanchard
Member, Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.

matthew@baypositives.org
+1 (415) 487-1616 (main)
+1 (415) 487-1617 (fax)

COPYRIGHT © 2011 Bay Area Young Positives, Inc. | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
www.baypositives.org | 701 Oak Street, San Francisco, CA 94117 | info@baypositives.org

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
matthew@qherekidsf.com

San Francisco, CA USA
[20110712T193457PST]

dot429 | BUSINESSON&OFFLINE™

COMPANY OVERVIEW: 

dot429.com is an exclusive networking community for gay professional men and women to connect with other successful gay people both live and online. Online, dot429.com will create a community featuring member profiles, blogs written by industry leaders, a listing of exclusive networking events, mentoring, and other ways to connect.

One of the things that will make dot429 truly unique, however, is that the community will host live, signature events designed to connect people who will have professional goals in common. We will begin with a monthly networking brunch and a series of intimate dinners around the city targeted at specific interests and professions.

dot429 will be the premier way you meet other interesting gay and lesbian people who can help your career ... we'll put you in good company.

MISSION:

dot429 was created with a simple vision in mind – to create a way for gay mean and women to network in order to help each other with their careers and lives. dot429 wants to make being gay an advantage in the work place.

WEBSITE: http://www.dot429.com

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/dot429 

Copyright © 2010 The 429 Group, LLC | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The 429 Group, LLC | 28 Twin Peaks, San Francisco, CA 94114
TEL. +1.415.564.0429 | FAX. +1.415.651.8747

MATTHEW D. BLANCHARD
Non-Profit

HIV/AIDS Advocacy Professional

http://dot429.com/member/matthewblanchard
http://www.visualcv.com/matthewblanchard
http://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewblanchard
http://qherekidsf.blogspot.com/
http://facebook.com/mblanchard79
http://twitter.com/QHereKidSF
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf




ABOUT ME
QHereKidSF @1/3Life TRY!UMPH!!
I am Man masked madly in mind's eye misgivings... The ubiquity of my ugliness is uncannily ulterior to my beauty beguiled, BeGODS!! Follow me for flagrantly unfettered, frenetic Fog City faggotry: garrulously salacious, in-your-face sycophantism & sophistry...

You'll see!! WINK! — Naw, For REAL! Bet you can't risk (re)telling my untamed, unshamed story of those torturously tragic trials & tribulations that have tentatively turned my thin skin tough again, without tending toward some semblance of sycophantic sophistry...

My serendipitously well-timed Saturn Return @1/3Life TRY!UMPH!! might very well have scratched, scuffed & scarred sanguine scarlet rosy red my reconstructed cheeks, chin & smile for a while, after my 1/4Life CRISIS! came crashing to a cataclysmic end; yet now today, ne'er more may I say I choose to languish & lament over my last-ditch, last-chance, listless, leftover life...

As QHereKidSF @1/3Life, I TRY! "UMPH!!" to truimph, even if success means switch-hitting and missing a swing... Even if victory means voicing my voracious fear of forever falling a few flimsy feet forward as nothing but a ne'er-do-well "fagged-out fräulein funambule freak show" who is vanquished as in a damned near doomsday downfall by disease & disfigurement...

Rather, I'd like to step sure-footed onto a shaky steel iron string to prance and dance in delighted acrobatics...
There, where many miles high above the sky my mindflux, my mayhem, and my mutant monstrosity matter no more...

There, where I am able to impart my many myriad life lessons learned onto those often ill-begotten & forgotten fag-friendly few who too are left to lead ill-fated, infandous & unjust lives of illness, injury, disease, and (damned if it be so!!) disfigurement, LIKE ME = Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF (a.k.a. Matthew D. Blanchard)!!

EXPERTISE

SKILLS/PROFICIENCIES PROFILE:
•  Extensive firsthand involvement with San Francisco NPO Sectors.
•  Knowledge/experience advocating for disadvantaged peoples.
•  Genuinely exceptional desire to affect positive change in World.
•  Highly skilled in coordination of HIV/AIDS Advocacy Programs.
•  Intimate participation in development of HIV Prevention Policies.
•  Trained in Safer Sex Advocacy & HIV Test Counseling Services.
•  Highly advanced/accessible written & oral communication skills.
•  Proven ability to envision, grasp & realize complex plans & ideas.
•  Exceptionally creative in design & development of programming.
•  Near-native fluency in French written & oral communication.

EMPLOYMENT/EXPERIENCE SUMMARY:
Extensive professional experience & training in the following:
1.) FUND-RAISING & DEVELOPMENT 2.) COMMUNICATIONS
3.) PROGRAM MANAGEMENT 4.) STRATEGIC PLANNING
5.) POLICY MAKING & ANALYSIS 6.) GRAPHIC & WEB DESIGN
7.) WEB 2.0 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING & NETWORKING
8.) PERFORMANCE PRODUCTION DESIGN & DIRECTION
For Health Services Consumer Advocacy, International Development,
Government Affairs, and Performing Arts Nonprofit Sectors.

View/Download Resume [dot429.com]

ECONOMY CRISIS = ROLLERCOASTER RISING

A Response to Questions on Unemployment


Is it naive of me to think that I may be able to stick out the economic crisis for a while longer and make good of my meek & miserable financial situation by investing every last minute of my free time as an unemployed NPO Management & Development Strategist into volunteerism??

If I can't get paid to cultivate & enhance my professional skills & talents in the for-profit workforce, then why not sign on to volunteer or intern as an upper level technical or professional specialties adviser for a social benefiting charitable organization at the local, state or national level.

Nonprofits of all shapes & sizes are presently faced with ever greater challenges, when valiantly striving to sustain & enrich their programming, in order to fulfill their constantly evolving but always ubiquitously salient mission(s), even when financial support from individual, corporate or government donors in the for-profit sector is painfully slow in coming.

It is in the rank & file lineup of unpaid volunteers & interns for such organizations where my advanced education & skill sets will not only be immensely valued but further developed, and of course, put to good use!

That is why I participate as a volunteer member of the Board of Directors for two NPOs with distinctly different (yet each vitally important!) purpose, goals & missions: one serving the Public Health & Human Services sector of the San Francisco Bay Area, and the other, an International Development nonprofit based in the MetroDC Area that serves the capacity-building needs of the Government of Sierra Leone.

That is also why I participate as a distinguished Artist in Residence with a local, San Francisco Bay Area experimental performance group comprised of disabled LGBTQQI & gender variant artists, as well as disabled people of color. Furthermore, it is why I remain poised to sign on as a volunteer Development Associate for the same disabled persons' performance group, if ever they should need me, and also why I continue to educate & train myself in NPO Management & Development strategies through low-to-no cost skills building workshops & seminars offered by ... yup, you guessed it!! ... Employment Development NPOs.

On a more personal (and eventually, a more allegorical) note, I'd like to explain a little of my back-story & perspective on the economic crisis. While the initial circumstances of my long-term unemployment are quite out of the ordinary, my disabling illness & injury over the past 3-9YRS have earned me access to public health & social welfare benefits that have sustained my illuxurious lifestyle below the national economic poverty line.

However, out of necessity or sheer force of will perhaps, I have learned to benefit considerably from and maximize upon the immense freedom than comes with considering my financial instability as status quo. I've learned to recognize, with my eyes, heart & mind aimed toward optimism, that downward trends in the economy (or in any sector of our society, for that matter!) could never be eternally perpetuated, constant nor unrelenting.

I have breached the threshold of death in the last 10 years more often than I care to acknowledge; although, no matter how degraded & destitute, downtrodden, diseased & depressed I have found myself during the short unsettling span of a mere decade, as most people do -- in fact, as most socio-economic systems do! -- I have rebounded time & time again.

 Life is a rollercoaster by taranoel, on Flickr®

Copyright © 2010 taranoel | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

http://www.flickr.com/people/8259445@N07

http://flic.kr/p/5vvCVk

It is the hills, not the valleys to which I look forward, hopefully. However, I try to remain realistic when the rusty-wheeled wagon of this rollercoaster we call life reaches its low points, remembering that it is our descent downward into those valleys which is most torturously jarring and hypersonic speedily fast. Furthermore, it is our ascent back up to the highest peek of our most goodly fortune that is stupendously suspenseful & slow.

Often, our wagon wheels must lock into a motorized track for assistance getting up these hills. But, eventually, we make it! The closer we are to approaching the sun-crested hilltops and the longer our wagon ride stays suspended in motion at the mountains peak, the happier, more satisfied & content we seem to be. That's the thrill of the ride! Those are the rules of motion!

The rollercoaster of life, just like the wildly raucous & rambunctious swirly whirling sudden dips & dives of our global (yes, GLOBAL!!) economy, is meant to climb very slowly out of stupendously speedy descents. All we can do is pray that the wagon wheels, which pummel life quickly forward toward adventure at every turn, do in fact stay on track, so that we don't suffer a cataclysmic crash!

Hell, then there would be severed limbs, blood, guts & brains strewn or splattered everywhere! Although, even if we ever did succumb to such a terrifying scenario, the lucky few (or many more than meets the eye!) survivors would simply pay homage to the victims, discard their remains, repair & resolve any functional weaknesses of the wagon & its wheels through implementation of carefully charted & planned design innovations, and begin the ride again right from where we were thrown off. That's the thrill of the ride! Those are the rules of motion! This is the adventure we call life, as we (are not necessarily permitted to) chose it!

Is this terribly trite & adolescent literary device of mine making much sense to you all? I guess, what I really want to know is, after reading my written response to unemployment & economic crisis, whether or not your hope & optimism has been rekindled or restored?? Curious to gauge my impact...

Sincere Regards,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
http://bit.ly/qherekidsf
[20101001T023713PST]

World Humanitarian Day (Aug. 19, 2010)

http://ochaonline.un.org/whd
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This single well-conceived, well-structured, and well-designed Web-page introduces myriad discussions and debate around Humanitarianism world-wide, by articulating in simple, pointed headers and paragraph explanations the key "humanitarian principles which represent the foundation of humanitarian action," as defined by the United Nations:

1.) HUMANITY: Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found. The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and ensure respect for human beings.

2.) NEUTRALITY: Humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.

3.) IMPARTIALITY: Humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of need alone, giving priority to the most urgent cases of distress and making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, gender, religious belief, class or political opinion.

4.) OPERATIONAL INDEPENDENCE: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the political, economic, military or other objectives that any actor may hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.

This page is easy-to-navigate, and chock full of video links and "Supporting Documents," such as those entitled, "Security Trends," "Q&A," "Leaflet," and "Key Messages."

 

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
2010 World Humanitarian Day POSTER (August 19) - v.English
(cc) CreativeCommons Attribute 2010 | creators: UNOCHA, et al.
http://ochaonline.un.org/whd/posters.html

What's best about this entire social marketing campaign is, in my opinion, their poster and video campaigns. Their brand identity, imagery and messaging are all captured in a way that definitively illuminates that countless lives affected by and involved with humanitarian work across the globe.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU EXPLORE THIS PAGE, if in fact you have any interest or involvement in international development and humanitarian aid work!!

I know that, as a global HIV/AIDS advocate and activist based in and around San Francisco, CA and the District of Columbia, but doing working that is of integral importance to the Government and peoples of The Republic of Sierra Leone, I was immensely captivated and profoundly moved especially by the video PSAs & the full length feature film available for viewing on this page!!

All that I have seen here makes me exceedingly proud to be a HUMANITARIAN AID WORKER on WORLD HUMANITARIAN DAY : August 19, 2010!!




http://youtu.be/Yy7lnXG5U9Q, posted by ochafilms (August 11, 2010)

The 2010 World Humanitarian Day project is a collaborative film shot in over 40 countries in under 9 weeks, on a shoestring budget - with the goal of showing the enormous diversity of places, faces and endeavors of humanitarian aid workers in 2010. It was filmed by humanitarian staff and freelance filmmakers from around the globe (over 50 contributors in total) with all time donated. Please help us by linking, embedding, tweeting and sharing this message with your friends, colleagues and contacts. Our sincere thanks to all those who contributed to the film, and to it's dissemination.

Credits:
Music by Krister Linder kristerlinder.com
2D animation by Anu Nagaraj at massmarket.tv
Title design by David Rasura

Produced by David Ohana/AVMU at
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
worldhumanitarianday.info

This film is a subtly potent portrayal of countless individuals around the globe who dedicate their lives to the good, well-fare, well-being, safety, health, and humanity of all mankind. What poignantly gripping and emphatically simple cinematography and music!!

The worldly rhythm of the score syncopates in Diasporic beats the quintessential individuality of all Humanitarian Aid Workers, while capturing in a no less than captivating fashion, frame after frame, a unified front of humanitarians one in the same, albeit all of them of different colors, races, ethnicity, gender, locations, etc.

We are ALL HUMANITARIAN AID WORKERS!! No matter where we do our work nor how, as long as we are pursuing the greater cause of the key humanitarian principles: HUMANITY, NEUTRALITY, IMPARTIALITY & OPERATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

I am a humanitarian HIV/AIDS advocate and activist working with and for the most beleaguered and needy populations of youth (primarily of color) infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the San Francisco Bay Area. But, I also contribute substantially to a government affairs and international development nonprofit based out of the District of Columbia and serving the government and peoples of Sierra Leone.

Through Social Media platforms such as Facebook®, Twitter®, YouTube®, StumbleUpon®, Blogger®, Windows® Live™ Spaces™, etc., I also have the opportunity to contribute my voice to the global humanitarian movement that has taken root within the USA and which is spreading ironically as rampant as a pandemic of myriad infectious diseases across the globe.

That's well said: HUMANITARIANISM IS INFECTIOUS!! Or, so this 60 sec. World Humanitarian Day PSA demonstrates so well; the cause is CONTAGIOUS!! Hallelujah! Cheers! Ciao! Namaste...

Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard

Fund-Raising Co-Chair
Board of Directors
Bay Area Young Positives, Inc.
baypositives.org [baypositives.org]
twitter.com/BAYPositives [twitter.com]
facebook.com/BAYPositives [facebook.com]

Board Associate of Communications | Webmaster
Int'l. Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone, Inc.
communications@ippsl.org
ippsl.org [ippsl.org]

Young Social Worker's Selfless ALTRUISM!!

A VICTIM TREATS HIS MUGGER RIGHT : NPR

JULIO DIAZ, MSW (age: 33)

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn. He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife. "He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'" Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome. "You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says. Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth. "The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'" "No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'" Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?" "Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said. Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says. The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to. When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you." The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know." Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me." Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch." "I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo. 

http://n.pr/DiazSW

As an aspiring Social Worker, who knows he's desperately got to work on treating people better (all people! all MANKIND!!), I am very moved by this story. Perhaps Diaz's faith in his fellowman, his uncommon generosity, empathy and understanding, could be misconstrued as a bit of 1/4-Life naivete, but I'd like to think that for as long as Diaz can and will cultivate, nurture, maintain, and grow his sense of altruism, then in fact all those possibly misconstrued character traits could be genuinely real and honest, and in fact, perhaps these traits could hang around for quite some time.

I've witnessed so much "BURN OUT" in the Social Services sector: MSW/LCSWs who just can no longer hack the pressure of daily on-the-job disappointments, letdowns and tragedy, and who have abandoned their careers after some 15 odd years, only to find themselves stranded.

Or, the other usual scenario, is that ground-zero in-the-trenches Social Service providers usually hack it for as long as they have to before a nice cushy desk-job comes their way, as Administrator of this, Coordinator of that, Manager of this, or Director of that. Then, that's when they lose sight of the human element that kept them so close to the streets at the beginning of their careers, and they grow cold and insensitive and money hungry, as most people do sooner or later.

I've known one or two people who have followed a different paradigm, and who have stuck to their guns in the trenches. Granted, these people could be painted in bizarrely radical and cacophonous timbres and hues, but they are REAL people, with REAL HONEST TO GOODNESS love for their fellowman. It's those type of people, 40 and 50 (and 60 or 70) year old men & women who still walk the streets looking to save a kid's life, that I find most heroic!! We'll have to see how Diaz turns out when he's a bout 20 years further into his career!!

Not cynical, but admiringly pleased...
Respectfully submitted,

Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[20100814T154013PST]

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WE MAKE A LIVING BY WHAT WE GET;

WE MAKE A LIFE BY WHAT WE GIVE.

— Winston Churchill 

Old Dreams Needn't Die [JFT, p. 167]

"Lost dreams awaken and new possibilities arise."
[Basic Text, p. 91]

Most of us had dreams when we were young. Whether we dreamed of a dynamic career, a large and loving family, or travels abroad, our dreams died when our addiction took hold. anything we ever wanted for ourselves was cast away in our pursuit of drugs. Our dreams didn't go beyond the next drug and the euphoria we hoped it would bring.

Now in recovery, we find a reason to hope that our lost dreams could still come true. No matter how old we are, how much our addiction has taken from us, or how unlikely it may seem, our freedom from active addiction gives us the freedom to pursue our ambitions. We may discover that we're very talented at something, or find a hobby we love, or learn that continuing our education can bring remarkable rewards.

We used to put most of our energy into spinning excuses and rationalizations for our failures. Today, we go forward and make use of the many opportunities life presents to us. We may be amazed at what we're capable of. With our foundation of recovery, success, fulfillment, and satisfaction are within our reach at last.

Just for today: Starting today, I'll do whatever I can to realize my dreams.

©2010 Narcotics Anonymous World Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

My meditation on this entry from the Narcotics Anonymous book, Just For Today, will be ripe with a certain degree of trepidation and doubt, as I have in recent days been faced with the daunting, disagreeable decision to end the working relationship I've had for the last ten and a half months with my sponsor. But, beyond all the fear and loathing lies an even more potent sense of self-satisfaction, coupled with an ubiquitously enthralling desire at last to claim my God-given right to a happy, home-bodied, not-all-too hamstrung, but hopeful future free from drug dependency (YES! I'd defend against that above all else!), disease, depression, destruction, denigration, denial, even perhaps... perchance by some off-willed shot of better than lazy luck, free from the indomitable dilemma(s) of my disfigurement, defined as dignity & disgust... (OOPS! SEE! That's where the doubt returns).

No more! Behind the doubt, perched proudly smack-dab in front of it, or even surrounding it entirely, exists my desire for a future. Beyond the stark surreality of my sins and sufferance(s) where realism takes hold again of the pious, pompous pedantry and post-dramatic spectacle of my insanity, there thrives an elaborate, extant and evocative desire for me to realize my dreams. Yes, in fact, for sure! I damn near dutifully desire to realize my dreams: new and old, unkempt and coveted, clamorous or quiet...a calming cacophony! Dreams that mesmerize the mind with their miraculous magnitude and magnificence. Dreams defined and buttressed by second chances and serendipity, serenity, solemnity, solace, smiles, or sometimes even signified by the most astute sort of scholarly study. Dreams dignified or disgusting, determined, daring, but... DAMN! Don't say it: DASTARDLY!!

NO, Not dastardly!! In no right measure would or could my decent, dauntless day dreaming be defined as dastardly nor despicable, contemptible nor cowardly. No need to pause a single second to say this: MY DREAMS MAKE ME A HERO IN MY OWN RIGHT!! My dreams denounce damned near death-defied destruction, delay and/or deter me from dipping back down the drug-drenched drain of dependency, diminish the degree of my disfigurement to near null, nil, zilch, zero. I am a hero! Thank God for that! I am a hero, if even only to myself.

Upon commencing down this path of sobriety, I have harbored much concerted, conceited consternation and contempt for the camouflaged courtship of co-dependencies that curtails 12-Step Culture via its customarily candid confabulations which cheat their critics of a cause. Hence, I am a hero for saying, "NO!" when the time was ripe for change. I am a hero for crouching no longer to the crutch of cliches of cult-like mentality. I am a hero for taking a stand, as well as for dismissing myself of such contrivances in a calm, gentile, friendly fashion. I am a hero in so far as I have saved myself from the insufferable uncertainty, the doubt (as mentioned before, and so damned near always there!), and the guilt that goes with gaming it like the "good boys" do.

Why such unabashed bellowing forth of bombastic boomerang backlash boasting of my better-than-brethren beliefs? Admittedly, there is no need to exalt myself in these pages. I get enough exaltation from every new acquaintance I meet who may or may not be hearing my story for the first time, and then even more from friends and family. Perhaps, its too late now to veil myself in an air of modesty, and perchance never too soon to lament in lambasting myself for lethargy, lassitude and lackadaisicalness? Thus herein, I have willingly succumb to surreptitiously sullying my good name with self-aggrandizing, simply since I have been in such complete and utter awe — bewilderment, even! — of my circumstances and situation so far.

My life was spared by some Greater Power from the chance tragic misfortune of never waking from such insolence as that which destroyed me already once. Furthermore, in being spared, I have learned to reinvigorate my commitment to all the tempting, tempestuous, torrid and tantalizing tickle-me-pink pretty things in life that help me breathe and smile still, such as art (in all its myriad forms), altruism, fighting for a right(-eous) cause, the capricious cataloging of my contemplations (just 'cause there's nothing else better left to do!), creative expression, academic pursuits, professional development, even people whom I hold dear to my heart, or hearts I hold close to my mind... Not to mention, Faith, religion, practice, prayer and communion with the Lord. I have a special affinity for my Higher Power, just as (S)/He holds me in high esteem, and that is plenty good news to keep me moving in a right(-eous) direction.

In closing, let me be a little less illusive with my tangled threads of thought, to speak conspicuously of the immense challenge that I faced until just recently. You see, I read this entry from Just For Today a week prior to its scheduled share, just because coincidentally, I was curious as to what my future held. When I read this entry for the first time, I found myself catapulted from a certain standstill stagnation of indecision and indecency toward a real awakening, or better yet toward a resolution. Immediately after first reading this entry a week ago, I sat down in calm, collected reserve, but with a certain sense of resolve and satisfaction, to draft a letter to my sponsor requesting that we terminate our relationship.

Why do such a thing? What on earth could have prompted such a move? Or better yet, what could have preempted it? I'll tell you what, squarely and straightforward, "Nothing!" What possessed me to even organize words on paper enough to fire my sponsor? I'll explain, briefly:

Ever since I entered into our sponsorship, I have been battling a resounding and resilient voice inside my head telling me that my sponsor was only holding me back. It got so bad early on, that it led to my acting out — not using, but buying a dog without his "permission" or joining the Board of Directors of a local Bay Area HIV/AIDS Youth Advocacy Nonprofit without first going to him for advice, not calling him at our scheduled times, lashing out when I felt mistook as nothing more than an anonymous client of sorts — not as a friend! Getting angry, sending exceedingly immature, melodramatic and hurtful text messages to him and another fellow when I was on the brink of quitting the program, and the list goes on... But all that outlandish behavior was ultimately rooted in a very real fear: I wasn't advancing through the program at a pace that I felt best suited my gifts and my potential...

Shall I put this into context for you? Let's just say that after tonight, when I slyly slipped my beautiful handcrafted stationery into my sponsor's pouch, it will have been a solid ten months and three and a half weeks since he and I began our fumbling foray through the fundamental tenants of 12-Step, and as of today, we hadn't even really breached Step Four. That averages out to be about four months per step!! So SLOW!! I mean, could we have gone any slower? I don't think so. I mean no offense to him however, for I know he only had the best of intentions for me at heart.

It's just that our pace wasn't in sync at all. And combine with that the disturbing suspicion that my sponsor was holding me back from realizing my calling: that is to say, prohibiting me from sharing at large speaker meetings, or from sponsoring a newcomer myself, or even just making simple and necessary life decisions, such as whether or not to apply for a job, or increase my commitment to my nonprofit, etc.

I know that everyone who reads this is going to have their own distinct and strident opinions about my choice to abandon my sponsor (especially if you are in the Fellowship!!), but let me tell you!! Since giving him that letter, I feel so damn free!! Focused!! Centered!! My sobriety has been reinforced and re-energized, justified even in my own head. Where once I had been shackled to my sponsor's own dogmatic determination to develop my sobriety at a snail's pace, unable and essentially prohibited from pursuing my dreams, now I have all my dreams spread out before me, beckoning me onward and upward toward accomplishment and contribution(s), toward learning and legacy...

See! I took this entry in the NA Meditation Book, Just For Today, very seriously. I told myself: "Just For Today, starting today, I will do whatever I can to realize my dreams." It's just too damn bad that I had to fire my sponsor for the sake of dreaming big, 'cause I sure as hell would have enjoyed having him at my side as I begin to conquer one new found challenge or obstacle after another, working ever so closer to some of the solid, surefire goals I've had a mind to accomplish for the past eight years... We'll see what happens, now!! God Bless You, JJ!!

Respectfully Submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
[MDB2010.06.16@00:48]

SINS INVALID : A.I.R. Program

SINS INVALID: AN UNCLAIMED SHAMED TO BEAUTY IN THE FACE OF DISABILITY, is "a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as members of communities who have been historically marginalized. conceived and lead by disable people of color, [they] develop and present cutting-edge work where normative paradigms of 'normal' and 'sexy' are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all individuals and communities."

SINS INVALID "present multidisciplinary performances (video, poetry, spoken word, music, drama, and dance) by people with disabilities for broad audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere; organize multidisciplinary performance workshops for community members with and without disabilities; and offer political education workshops for community-based and educational organizations that share [their] commitment to social justice principles as a means of integrating analysis and action around disability, race, gender and sexuality."


2010 marks the inaugural year of the SINS INVALID Artists in Residence (A.I.R.) Project, a performance development and incubation project through which new, up and coming LGBTQQI disabled artists of diverse color and/or creed are invited to come together to collaborate, mentor, workshop and produce solo or ensemble performance pieces to be premiered as headlining entertainment at a showcase performance event this coming December.

For the last two weeks, I have been anxiously awaiting response back from the SINS INVALID A.I.R Project Coordinator, Nomy Lamm on her decision to accept me as an participating A.I.R. performer. Even though the application process was quite comfortable and relaxed, I had to turn it into a grueling, anxiety-filled affair, imbuing the whole ordeal with an overbearing sense of urgency and enthusiasm.  With fingers wound round each other in superstitious anticipation, I prayed that my exhaustive energy would impress the judges, and so it did!

Today, Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at around 11:47AM PST, I received an email from Ms. Nomy Lamm, congratulating me on my selection and welcoming me into the program. Now, finally, with great relief and still even greater excitement, I'm able to post my application and a brief synopsis of my interview for the position without preempting any alternate outcome.  I post the following, as I like to say, for the sake of posterity and perpetuity, to be made accessible to the world wide blogosphere through the cyberwaves of my communiques.

SINS INVALID ARTIST IN RESIDENCE APPLICATION
DO YOU IDENTIFY AS LGBTQ OR GENDER VARIANT?
     Yes, and proudly so.
     Though I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence closeted in immense shame of my "deviant" sexuality, I knew from an early age that I was in fact a homosexual. It took me until my Junior Year Abroad in 1999-2000, while I was studying Performance ARts in paris, France, to "come out" as gay, to find romance and in that same year to seroconvert.
     coming back to Williamsburg, Virginia, where I had lived and studied as an undergraduate for five years, was incredulously difficult -- torturous even, for the simple reason that I was bitterly rejected by my peers because of my abrupt, albeit completely sequitur, shift in sexual orientation.
     I was a handsome young man, back then. I broke the hearts of many young women, who had fallen amorous of me, as well as those of many young men, you desired me sexually, but for whom I held no dutiful, profound attraction.
     Now, I realize, through the spite of circumstance, that I've lost most of my concrete, tangible, physical beauty (so integral to successful gay male relationships, or so it sometimes seems).
     Most of those young gay men, who once rejected me because I ostensibly rejected them, would still reject me today, even though I'm a proud, resilient gay man living a dream. Or maybe, during the practice of performance so integral to the Sins Invalid syllabus of study, I will (re)discover my beauty and either again ostensibly or forevermore actually find that I can and do and will attract love, admiration, desire, lust, sex, romance, etc. We will see; won't we?

WHAT IS YOUR ETHNIC BACKGROUND AND/OR RACIAL IDENTITY?
     I'm a "white trash" mutt of a man, bred of third-generation Eastern European and French-Canadian immigrants.
     I usually abstain from answering such questions, because I find that more often than not polls and surveys, such as this year's foreboding, omni-force of social study: The 2010 Census, insinuates prejudice against "Caucasians."
     NO! I'm NOT a Neo-Nazi -- God Forbid!! I do, however, always answer "other" in these instances. Any racial or ethnic minority is welcomed to object or claim that I am merely projecting my own internalized racism through reversed racism inferred. Yet, I lay steadfast and stubborn claim to the notion that "not all Whites live in an Ivory Tower."
     So here, in this instance, I call myself "White Trash." Because, without any degree of self-loathing, I can easily recognize from where I was born and to where my race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability and disease(s) have lead me: not up the social ladder, be even further down from where I started -- to San Francisco's Skid Row.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR ART: WHAT DO YOU DO? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU?
     I was once , so long ago, an elite and very fortunate student practitioner of a refined artistic performance craft. My study of the theatre and performance arts earned me a place in the pantheon of student artists at my alma mater: The College of William & Mary, '02.
     During my undergraduate studies and immediately following the emotionally debilitating shock of my HIV diagnosis in my senior year, I was honored with the privilege of studying abroad on full scholarship in Europe.
     I studied extensively the art of Mime Decroux at L'Atelier de Belleville and at l'École Jacques LeCoq, Shakespeare and Chinese Opera with l'Association de Recherche des Traditions de l'Acteur (ARTA) under the direction and tutelage of company members of the Théâtre du Soleil and acclaimed contemporary Taiwanese opera and dance master, Wu Xing Guo. I studied with and was directed in the lead role of Les Mamelles de Tirésias by a graduate of the Tisch School for the Arts Experimental Performance Workshop and French national. I traveled to the South of France to study and perform with a bilingual Franco-American contemporary performance company at the Festival d'Avignon: Europe's most sumptuous, most popular, and most time-honored celebration of the theatre, dance and performance arts.
     I also was honored with the privilege of studying on scholarship the traditional and contemporary traditions of theatre in Florence, Italy, including the pinnacled canon of commedia dell'arte, as well as the theories and practice of acclaimed Italian theatre masters, Fo & Strehler.
     The combined force of my experience(s) studying on foreign soil, directly in the muck of mayhem and mischief of mainland European student life, greatly influenced the birth on my passion(s) for the modern & contemporary cinemas of France and Italy.
     I found that in preparing for my directorial debuts in the theatre, upon my return to The College of William & Mary stateside, much of what I had studied of Le Film Noir, Neorealism and the cinema of Jean-Jacques Jeunet integrally influenced my artistic choices. Truly, my directorial debuts were infused with a synthesis of all of my theatrical and cinematographic studies, transforming into a culmination of work of immense impact, value and valor.
     As a French Literature and Theatre Arts major at The College of William & Mary, I honed my artistic skill and craft with the direction, scenic and costume design of two prominent works of Eugène Ionesco and of the Theatre of the Absurd: The Lesson, and The Chairs.
     After undergraduate and after some time in Italy, I came to San Francisco, where I returned to my humble, modest roots as destitute and delusional "White Trash," living in the Tenderloin, under the care of numerous HIV/AIDS service organizations.
     Through my ties to Larkin Street Youth Services, I met Peter Carpou (former member of the Board of Directors of the Intersection for the Arts), who in turn facilitated my acceptance on full scholarship into the 2004 Hybrid Project performance workshop series. that was my last theatrical experience to date, as shortly thereafter, my multiple disabilities truly debilitated me.
     For the years following that major milestone performance opportunity for me, my life has been marred by physical, mental, emotional and behavioral deterioration, destruction and disease. Thus, i have been on somewhat of a forced sabbatical, and in a state of what seems to be terminal separation and disjuncture with my art.
     Only in the last year have I been blessed with the great fortune of finding the necessary guidance to be led through a long and arduous rehabilitation and recovery process; which, in turn, I would like to see culminate this time in my participation as a Sins Invalid Artist In Residence.

WHAT IS YOUR DISABILITY, AND/OR YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY?
     I'll approach this question systematically and succinctly, to defer all elaborate provocations to my other answers.
     I have lived through debilitating, disabling HIV/AIDS, a nine month schizo-delusional messianic psychosis induced by use of crystal meth, as well as substance abuse and HIV/AIDS-related PCP pneumonia and a poly-microbial necrotizing bacterial infection of my face, which subsequently led to the state in which I find myself now: disgruntled, disfigured, dismantled and deformed -- devoid of all natural, tangible beauty -- left only to fight furiously and ferociously through my own "faggotry" and foggy memories to find my beauty again.
     My relationship to the disability community has thus far been tangential and only dictated by the circumstance(s) of my hospitalization(s). I have for a long while (since my injury & illness, and after witnessing the atrocious destruction of my face, my nose, my jaw, my mouth, my lips, and my smile) refused to associate with the "disfigured" community. I have feared reprisal by those plenty proud people who have suffered trauma after trauma far worse than mine, and who have been torn to pieces physically.
     I can and do wear a mast to cover my reconstructed contortion of a face, while many other victims of facial or body trauma cannot (or simply will not!) wear masks or costumes to hide their "variances." Shocking! -- the contrivances, consequences and coincidence of how the study and wearing of a myriad of masks and costumes has profoundly defined my artistic and personal life (or plagued it!), all along.
     But, i have begun to reach out, more recently. I was introduced to Sins Invalid and the AIR Program by a burn survivor and new found friend of mine: James Anthony Bosch. It is with his support and encouragement that I am taking a gargantuan leap forward into the (hopefully, as he says they'll be) welcoming arms of the disabled and disfigured communities.
     I want to use my participation in the Sins Invalid AIR Program to reconcile my own immense tragedies and turmoil with the tremendous amount of talent and blessing with which I have been gifted throughout my life, even still now.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE AN ARTIST IN RESIDENCE? WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BRING TO THE PROJECT? WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO GET FROM THE EXPERIENCE?
     Upon viewing the Sins Invalid website, with accompanying photo and video documentation of past performances by the company, I have been mesmerized and dually inspired by the profoundly beautiful artistry the organization evokes in its work: "AN UNSHAMED CLAIM TO BEAUTY IN THE FACE OF INVISIBILITY!!" Beauty within! My creative energy has been critically and conspicuously resuscitated by the images and sounds, pictures and poetry that I have witnessed by Sins Invalid, and I most deeply desire to be part of this phenomenon, this movement, this corpus of performance work, and in the company of this genuine and genius mastery of craft.
      More importantly however, I crave the opportunity to use my participation in the Sins Invalid Artists In Residence Program as a vehicle and/or mechanism for reconciling myself with my myriad of disabilities and disfigurement(s).
     I have known for years that the story of my life and my struggles could ans would easily lent itself to the creative process of artistic performance and storytelling on stage. With a full year (or more!) of committed rehabilitation and recovery under my tightened belt, I feel entirely ready now to be led on the journey toward discovering the "evocative enunciation of my sacred self."
     What I have to bring to the project are the highest standards of professionalism and the study, practice and mastery of diverse performance traditions; as well as intellect and creativity of stellar proportions; courage in face of a face deface and disfigured; a desire to grow and change and further develop my craft, my psyche, my spirituality, my sobriety, my sanity and my health. I also will bring ambition, determination, enthusiasm, and an ostensibly blank slate upon which might be sketched or etched or sculpted the next masterful Thinker.

WHAT IS YOUR ARTIST DREAM? DESCRIBE THE BOOK, PLAY, SONG, PERFORMANCE OR PROJECT YOU'D LOVE TO CREATE...

1. SEMI-AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE PIECE : that would prove an affront to aesthetic prejudices and judgments of the status quo, by confounding an audience through the "evocative enunciation of my sacred self." I'd like to use this performance project, as I've said previously, to reconcile with my demons and to demonstrate that true beauty transcends the physical. I can't say much more on the subject, because the idea is still percolating in my mind. But, I know that the Sins Invalid AIR Program would be a pivotal, integral platform for creating such a piece. 
2. CRYSTALINE: NYMPHO, NARCOTIC FEROCIOUS FIEND OF A FREAK SHOW (a.k.a., "TWEAKER MONSTER") : Incorporating much of my LeCoq and mime training along with situational real-world improvisation technique and the modern Japanese Butoh tradition, I dream of creating an androgynous drag persona that can be "performed" interactively in popular night clubs and gay sex dens; one which is characterized by absurd nymphomania, absence of human touch boundaries, and ultra-concentrated sexual and emotional perversion. I envision that the persona might live amongst the crowds in these locales to breakdown walls and stereotypes and above all to frighten/shock/disgust subjects into realizing that crystal meth is a destructive, disruptive, deranged, debilitating, disfiguring, demonizing disease of an addiction: a monstrosity!! This persona might be something I'd be compelled to workshop as a participant in the AIR Program, in addition to or instead of a semi-autobiographical piece. Perhaps, the two projects could be synthesized and meshed together into one unified performance motif. If not, then I'll just incubate this particular idea until further opportunities for its development present themselves.
3. A NATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL QUEER PERFORMANCE CONSERVATORY : I aspire to obtain a PhD in Performance Studies either from Berkeley, Brown, NYU, Northwestern or UCLA, with an overarching focus on variant forms of contemporary experimental queer performance and with an emphasis on the aesthetic, historical and theoretical analysis of the art of Drag Performance around the globe. The Conservatory, which I hope to found once I earn a reputation as one of the nation's leading academic experts and performance masters of these variant genres of theatre, would offer BA/BFA and MA/MFA degrees similar to those which were award by the Experimental Performance Institute (EPI) of New College of California at San Francisco, when it was still extant. Tracts of study would include: a.) Social Activism & Agitprop in Performance, b.) Gender, Sexuality & the Stage; as well as specializations in c.) The Performance of Disease, Disability & Stigma; and of course, d.) DRAG!! I want the Conservatory to be breeding ground for drag ingénues and masters of the craft, where they might be able and invited to (re)define/refine their technique and practice ... where the common colloquial drag performer can come to learn and apply time-tested performance traditions and methodologies to the creation of multiple personae and in multiple performance styles. The Conservatory would be a platform upon which young and old drag performers, alike, could gain the skills and creative tools necessary to create art that transcends the kitsch and camp (while still respecting the kitsch and camp roots of the craft), thus entering or accessing the noblest pantheon of performance arts.
4. THE HARROWING, HILARIOUS HISTORY, AESTHETICS, ANTICS & HOW-TO'S OF DRAG PERFORMANCE : an interactive, illustrated academic/instructional book on the complete history, globally variant aesthetic traditions, diversity of performance styles, subject-matter, song-choice, practice and culture of DRAG Performance. This book, I envision, will be somewhat of an interactive, instructional anthology of drag performance studies, written entirely in partnership with acclaimed drag artists and authors. This book would be kitsch and classy, camp and contemplative, challenging to the nth degree, but coy and cute, sexy and sultry: an astutely academic, scholarly work disguised as a coffee table trinket or toy.
5. TRANSLATION, DIRECTION & DESIGN OF AN EXPERIMENT QUEER or GENDER VARIANT PRODUCTION OF LES MAMELLES DE TIRÉSIAS : The Tits of Teresias!! I think I want to save this for graduate school!! But, who knows? It could be my ticket into graduate school....

To my delight and equal opportunity of surprise (shock, even!), this rather sterling example of my put-offish verbosity and pedantry shined in the eyes of the judging panel for the Sins Invalid AIR Program, enough so that they were compelled to schedule me for an interview.  I was overwhelmed with anticipation, when I found out that I had made it to the second round of the selection process. I counted the days, the hours, the minutes until the moment I say "nomylamm" pop-up on my SKYPE® Contact List, and shortly thereafter received her incoming video call.

In my opinion, however harsh and self-critical I may be, the interview seemed a bit disjointed and convoluted on my part, as it was happening. But I found some comfortable in the fact that Nomy kept asking me to repeat word-for-word what exactly I had previously said, so that she could write it down.  At first, I thought this quite awkward and unconventional of her, but then it became clear to me that she was so intent on recording my exact words, because they must have been well enough construed (and my statements well enough constructed) to have an impact and to impress her. 

So, for me, in my impression, this was a good sign. Apparently so... But, I'll have to ask her about that in person.  Maybe, she'll shoot my ego down back to ground zero, admitting that she was only following procedure, but until she diminishes my feeling of accomplishment (however gently she may coax me down from aloft!), I will stick with my gut feelings.

See, I didn't have any previous works to exhibit to the Sins Invalid AIR Program judges. There exists no real, tangible record of any of my past performances. Trust me! I went to great lengths to search out photos and videos or even audio recordings of my past performances, but to no avail. I kept coming up short, at every turn. All the judges could go off of was my application and the blog to which I am posting said application at this moment. And of course, my blog has video and audio embedded into it: all original "productions" by me, of me, about me, featuring me. If anything, they found some distinguishable value in what little I had to show for myself and of my work.  And for that I am grateful.

Now, as things progress forward, I just have to walk light footed, but hell bent on staying serious about my art and about playing, creating, experimenting, imagining a whole new world to come alive on the stage. I couldn't be more excited!  The group of AIR Program participants seems like a phenomenally diverse, eclectic and talented group  of artist.  I'm a bit intimidated, to tell you the truth.  Most everyone who is participating in the inaugural Sins Invalid AIR Program is a professional or semi-professional writer.  I, on the other hand, just dabble.  

And oh damn, don't I dumbly display my minimally megalo-magnificent meanderings through doodles and droolings of dastardly devious dexterity of wit? If you would call it wit, wonder if it be pitifully witty to wander wayward with unwavering wise-ass-ity to widdle away a wee few words of way wrong wisdom, leaving the long lost laboring minds of many to wander with me wondering what this wacko for there went.  EWWWWWWWWW.  ALLITERATION IS MY DEMISE! Quote me on that... And with that, I am outtie!  Cheers! Ciao! Namaste! 

Respectfully submitted,
Matt(e)o | QHereKidSF
Matthew D. Blanchard
San Francisco, CA USA
[2010.05.12@15:25PST]